Jon Stewart reflects on The Daily Show five years after his exit, describes the show's "worst legacy" and tells why "Donald Trump’s presidency has been a positive"

The New York Times

Stewart said goodbye to The Daily Show on Aug. 6, 2015, less than two months after Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy and the same night as Trump's first Republican presidential primary debate. In an interview, The New York Times' David Marchese points out to Stewart that politics has become nastier, more extreme and more combative since his Daily Show departure. "But in a way," Stewart responds. "Donald Trump’s presidency has been a positive, because it shows that American democratic exceptionalism is not a birthright. He’s like a white-hat hacker. You go: 'I think we’ve done a great job of building a safeguarded system. Could you test the vulnerabilities?' The hacker goes — boop, boop, boop — 'I’m in through the back door, and I stole all your information.' With Donald Trump it’s like: 'We have a very fair and impartial judiciary. What do you think, Donald?' He goes — boop, boop, boop — 'Actually, if I move some people around, I can turn it into a corrupt partisan affair.’’ And I used to talk about how ‘The Daily Show’ was a refinery. We would take unrefined material in the morning and try to create something relatively palatable by the end of the day. Some days we created a beautiful blended whiskey. Other days we created rotgut. We had a system to try and address that challenge. And that’s just a dopey show! Within the government, they’ve instead created a system to insulate themselves and propagate their own interests. And I think the root of that is the for-profit incentivization of the industrial-political complex." Stewart also was asked how Fox News has evolved. Bill O'Reilly used to be his great foil. Now Fox News is most defined by Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. "I think they’re just the next level," says Stewart. "As things progress, to get the same dopamine hit, you have to push it further. Although O’Reilly pushed it pretty far. The question was always, Why would you talk to him? Why do you have him on the show if you can’t destroy him? If you want to talk about the worst legacy of The Daily Show, it was probably that." Asked about what he misses about The Daily Show, Stewart responds: "I miss the conversations at The Daily Show. I loved going in and sitting in that room with smart, talented people and shooting the (expletive) about the world. It was an immense pleasure and honor. But, man, I get so many more colors in my life now."