>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: christmas, jon stewart, thanks for doing this. >> thank you for having me. charlie: this is the today show. chris, why an oral history? >> come on. >> the title, "if i did it," was taken, so we had to go with the other title. >> because it is an oral history. >> and the voices of the people who wrote and performed this show are so interesting and are

really not terribly well known outside of the 22 minutes a night that jon and everybody else did for 16 years. stephen colbert and others have done interviews. but the actual process of making the show, that wasn't kept secret but kept close because jon was so focused on those four days a week and just getting it done and that's a hard job. the actual process, the making of the show, the evolution, the growth, internally and externally, was a story best told by the people who lived it. charlie: go to jon and say, will you do this and cooperate. and you said yes, let's do this. >> i have known chris for a very long time and i always enjoyed his reporting. he always came at things from a really thorough and fair -- when

you were reading his work in a magazine and other places, it always felt invested but not purposely pejorative. it was really well-balanced. we were so involved over those 16 years. they said what was it like, what was your favorite part? i do not know. charlie: you learned a about the perspective of the guys come of the men and women that made up "the daily show?" jon: yes, i wanted to be told as thoroughly and as fairly, words and all, as it could possibly be and chris was a great reporter to be able to do that. charlie: over the 16 years, how did it evolve? what did it become that it was not in the beginning? jon: we became better at doing it.

it's not that it's -- there are two separate things, what the show became and what people thought of the show and the outside perspective of it and that was the thing that i think -- i talked to chris a lot about, you had to ignore. what we tried to develop was a decent internal barometer for the show and how well you could execute it. you couldn't say, i don't know if this is an emmy award-winning. you had to try and keep your own morality and integrity as the beacon for where you wanted the material to go. charlie: was your instinct right about what would be funny and wouldn't be funny? jon: i think we got better at that. there is something fragile about comedy. another'smeat is

asphalt. iere were things i wrote thought were very funny that the audience might not. and other things it when you would do a joke, a pun to come up with a shoulder and the crowd would go bananas. would stop and look at them alike come are really? we spent the whole day crafting a comedic essay. but they just liked the pond on pun.-- >> people often forget, the jony show existed before arrived as host. craig kilborn was there for three years. they laid a good foundation, in some ways. the mock correspondents, the satire of news.

the tone and focus was different. it was much more of a parity of local newscasts, and a way. it could be mean-spirited. they were more interested in celebrity and showbiz. it punched down at times in a way that could be funny, but meral.f a femoral -- ephe he knew he wanted it to be more substantive, but he didn't have a master plan or a blueprint of here is where we are going. charlie: you said, i just wanted to be there a month. jon: i had been fired enough. charlie: do you know why you were successful this time? was this the best extension of your talent? jon: i believe it was the best

extension of what i knew how to do. perhaps i did not know that at the time. cable is a different animal, especially during that time. it has a different level of pressures and a different level of performance. you are able to use it as a laboratory in ways that you wouldn't be able to do on a network. the network lives or dies overnight. cable, lives or dies by the carriage. charlie: they have two revenue streams. jon: their goal was to throw things out there. we had more time, and that allowed me a little more confidence to push it. and i had to push them as well, because it wasn't necessarily the direction they wanted to go in. charlie: but you were running the show, too. you were there in the trenches. chris: if you have a craft

services table -- there are a number of metaphors. a number of a digestive metaphors. charlie: what did it become? it became a cultural event. more than a show. and jon started to touch on this. it is easy to forget in 2016 what the media world looked like in 1996, 1997, 1999, where "comedy central" was a sketchy proposition. msnbc and fox news had launched at the same time "the daily show" was coming into being. facebook did not exist and now it had a major influence on a presidential election.

charlie: it was a debt -- jon: it was a different time. charlie: we just went through an election. jon: what? charlie: your reaction to this election? jon: surprise! it all ties together. chris: fear? jon: here's what i would honestly say. i don't believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks ago or where we were a month ago. the same country, with all its grace and flaws and volatility and insecurity and strength and resilience exists today as existed two weeks ago, the same country that elected donald trump elected barack obama. and those contradictions, this election to me is another

extension of the long argument that we've had from our founder, which is what are we. and that's, you know, are we an ideal or ethnostate? that argument has existed. on a philosophical and theoretical level i feel bad for , the people for whom this election will mean more uncertainty and insecurity. but i also feel like this fight has never been easy. and i think -- it's odd. we are a couple and we met. and the first fight we had when we met was -- i mean, look, the people that had money had slaves.

the people we honor had slaves. the people who wrote all men are created equal had slaves. and it's not like they didn't know it was wrong. charlie: they came from a slave-owning state. jon: the argument between rural and urban, the ideals of alienable rights and slavery, we have had the same argument. at times it has been more violent, but it has never been easy. and fighting for this -- i don't see this as some sort of end point. it's a continuation of a long battle to determine what we are. and i think it made me wonder -- one of the things that struck me odd about this election and maybe i just missed it is nobody asked donald trump what makes america great. and that was the part -- charlie: he wants to make america great again. nobody said what is it you want

to do that we aren't doing now. jon: what are the metrics? to him, from listening the metric is a competition. there are wins and losses. we are going to win more. is that what makes us great? i think what many would say is what makes us great is, america is an anomaly in the world. there are a lot of people -- and i think his candidacy has animated the thought that a multi-ethnic and the multi-cultural democracy is impossible. and that is what america, by its founding and constitution, is. charlie: and is becoming more and more year-by-year. some people were worried that it meant different things for them and that their life was changing because of that and there was a certain fear. chris: no question.

the insecurities that people feel as marginalized populations are also felt -- a rust belt worker that lost his job in manufacturing, but look at the things he said. i live in an area that voted for him. the question is, did democrats and secretary clinton open the door for donald trump because she could not speak to them? jon: whether or not she opened the door or not, i don't think it was her door to open. you are talking about a global issue. globalization and pushback of that. in ethnostates it makes more sense that we have an identity. that when you live in a state that is an ideal, what is the bar of entry?

i agree with you, people have in alienablele -- in rights. let's not pretend this is not a battle that has been revisited time and time again. we have ay i feel resilience to it, that we have to continue to fight. charlie: is it healthy to have this battle this sense of , finding who we are? jon: yes. charlie: where whether we have gone off track in some way? jon: absolutely. i would rather have this conversation openly and honestly rather than in dog whistles. there might be an anti-semite working in the white house. i say have you listened to the , nixon tapes? forget about advising the president, the president. have you read lbj do you know , our history? and we also have to caution ourselves to the complexity of that history. i thought donald trump

disqualified himself at numerous points. but now there is this idea that anyone who voted for him has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric. and i think it's a big mistake. and i think our relationship status with our own worst impulses is complicated. you have to remember, who was the most progressive president in our history? it is franklin delano roosevelt, who interned asian americans during world war ii. so we are a complicated and real people. i know the hardest thing for me during this election was the disconnect i had between watching the rallies, which i think animates because it is a rally. the wisdom of crowds isn't particularly moderate.

but to see lock her up and shouting at the media and jewusa. and terrible things that happened and his inability to in any way tamp that down and in some cases inspire it to view , that with my own experience with real people that i knew who were voting for trump who are friends of mine, who i don't tolerate because -- well they are irredeemable and deplorable i love. , but there are guys that i love, that i respect, that i think have incredible qualities who are not afraid of mexicans, or muslims or blacks they are , afraid of their insurance premiums. and this idea that, you know that they represent -- they have given tacit approval to a dictator and a madman, look at

your phone, man. look at everything we have. we make those kinds of compromises every day. i have gone on too long. four exploited of purposes. i have gone on too long. charlie: no, you haven't. [laughter] jon: i am sorry, i have not had anyone to talk to about this. charlie: you came to the right place. ♪

charlie: did you miss it during the campaign? jon: god, no. charlie: not for a second? you did not want to be there, doing what you just did? tell us what you thought, both with satire and with comedy and with reason. jon: no. not at all. no. because impotent rage wears on you. charlie: meaning you could be full of rage, but it wouldn't make any difference? jon: correct. any pursuit like this. any artistic pursuit, for whatever affected has on the artist is a relatively selfish , pursuit. it is for the individual and a way to express ideas and get them out. and feel the seduction of it, it's going to score or not going to score. that's the hit. that's the adrenalin. but what begins to wear on you is where it's taken.

and i think this election could be a great lesson in that controlling the culture is not the same thing as power. and a viral video the vista cerating racists is not the same as a grassroots movement that seeks to have common ground with people and create a multiethnic coalition that understands that hierarchy of needs isn't your needs. charlie: but the idea of what "the daily show," became wasn't banging around in your head when you took this job. jon: what was banging around in my head was, is there a better way to execute public affairs comedy that means something to me? if i am going to spend this much time -- i hosted talk shows. i did one on mtv and a syndicated.

i was spending 12 hours a day on things that did not feel substantial or meaningful to me. so this was a chance to, can i express my comedy about things that i care about in a way that's entertaining enough that i will not be fired? because i have been fired. and when you get fired and your name is on the show, it's hard not to go, oh, you might suck at this. and you have to re-evaluate. you know what? if i'm going to put myself in that position then, i'm going to lay it on the line and i'm going to put out there what i care about. and it could get rejected. i will go down doing it my way. jon: exactly.

i'm going to do it in the way that i think is the best iteration of my abilities and if that goes down, i can bartend. [laughter] charlie: yes, you could. was there a moment, a time, an event, that you said we've got , it? we have traction. i can be confirmed in my belief that what i was rolling the dice on has come up a winner? jon: no. charlie: not in terms of success but in terms of the confidence that what i wanted to do and what i was insisting on doing has been -- jon: you talked to a bunch of people. i would say it was never about like -- it was more that would we be able to develop a process to do that well? it is the inherent juxtaposition of a creative pursuit that can we build a machine that is redundant and rigid enough that

it can sustain inspiration, improvisation, and creativity? charlie: when did the process kick in that you knew? jon: that wasn't my concern. charlie: when did that happen? chris: it really took shape through the 2000 campaign and the recount and the day-to-day process. like jon said, the technology eventually caught up with what "the daily show" was doing and they pioneered it in some ways. not just the form, but the assembly of these kind of mont ages. equally important was not simply the process of ok, we are having a meeting at 9:00. what they found early on was a tone.

to what they wanted to do. and while events went on in the outside world that changed what they thought, they found a tone, in a piece steve carell did with john mccain on "the straight talk express" in late 1999. a bit where he was at a bus and they would not let him on it. one was mainstream press, the other had a bathroom. they go to cindy mccain that the -- and she is appalled by the conditions. what you do not know from watching the finished piece was all the work that went into this. it became a prototype of how jon shifted field pieces away from abject cruelty to point of view.

producer had laid out a series of questions. is a world-class improviser. if you ask a question and he says x, this is how you respond. the difficulty is one of my difficulties. you have a world-class improviser's working with civilians that do not know they are in improv. they develop all these questions of what they are going to ask mccain. most are softball, like what , kind of tree would you be? and what became famous in the point in the development of the show, carell asked mccain, senator, you have been a strident opponent of pork-barrel spending, how can you justify when you were chair of the commerce committee, you ok'd

billions of dollars in porkbarrel spending? and mccain freezes and deer in the headlights moment. tension byts the saying, i was just joking. i do not even know what that means. now what was fascinating to me and carell did not remember it, they found that question in time magazine driving over to the shoot. that kind of structure and geniusnute improvisatory is something he held throughout his run of the show. it also brings up something interesting that is the crux "the daily show" paradox. in that moment, you hold account -- to account a senator whose entire identity is based on a hypocritical behavior. i'm against this pork-barrel

politics. unless it benefits -- we nailed you. and what do we have to do at that point? we let you go. it's catch and release and we have to undercut it with a laugh. and it gets to the joy and frustration of doing that type of job. it is when we realized that access didn't help us. so it's that idea, i got you. and here's my one moment and i'm going to come a with a scalpel, go to the crux of your identity as a politician and expose it to everyone and make a joke about it and walk away and you will laugh. and it will humanize you. one of the difficulties of this is satire began to take the place of reality.

i think this has been given a greater place in the discussion and a larger role in the discourse than is warranted. and once that started to happen, i think you began to question if it's a good thing or a bad thing. and i know it's not a black or white issue, but controlling the culture -- for as much fun we could make of the tea party and passing around viral videos, they weren't as friendly off the highway as taking over a school board. and we just had an election where the democrats won by one million votes and don't control the presidency, house, senate or governorships or state legislatures. this may be the largest disconnect between majority rule

and majority power that we have had in this country in ages. and i'm in no way saying i'm responsible. [laughter] saying, therei am is a comfort in culture that can be mistaken for real power. there are only two towns in the world that i have been that i thought was delusional. one is washington, d.c., and the other is los angeles. and the only difference is that in los angeles they actually believe they have power. but d.c., like, that's where it is man. and the irony. charlie: d.c. has power, l.a. believes they have power. the same arrogance. whatever we are saying about culture, the influence you had come in the end it is not political power. jon: in the end it's not even the same arrogance. cultural. it's a story we tell ourselves about the rightness of our

position. it is arguments. ght.s not without wei but it is not without so much weight. i believe that culture played a good role in marriage equality. i think it brought a story out that had been -- so much of what occurs with inequality is ignorance. and i don't mean that in a malevolent way. i mean it in a way of, i don't have no experience with this i , don't know what it is. exposure to that can be positive. charlie: do you think people came as guests because they, a, wanted the numbers you had, wanted to reach the audience you had, or because they enjoyed it, it gave them a certain kind of sense of being part of something that was hip and in? jon: i will say they did not enjoy it. charlie: really?

>> to that point, chris wallace of fox news said almost exactly those words to me. that his kids were never more impressed with him than when he went on "the daily show." it felt like you'd been invited to become a member of a hipper club. charlie: and you have a ticket to that club, that is power. it is power in the way a bouncer has power. i'm going to tell you, man. drive down 14th street. palladium ain't there anybody. it is a condo now. chris: on my way over here i walked past fox news world headquarters. there's a marching band, there's dancing girls, there's free jello shots. apparently they won. charlie: but speaking of fox news. it was the gift that kept on giving. jon: it was not the gift that

kept on giving. it was the relentless offer of -- they were a good foil because they were offering cynicism. which they continue to offer. there is no more cynical enterprise than fox news. for whatever they want to say about the liberal media. charlie: or fair and balanced. jon: which may be the most cynical expression of any slogan in the history of slogans. that's like, if coca-cola went out there and their slogan was, healthy vitamins for children. it's completely not that. fox news is reactionary. in the way that by the way, "the daily show," is reactionary. in a way that a lot of this new media is a reaction to what they see as either unfairness or something hidden. charlie: but did you see what you were doing as simply offering an alternative to what

fox was saying? jon: no. charlie: ok, go ahead. jon: we saw it as -- so the headline for it on "the huffington post" would be, stewart eviscerates arguments against gay marriage. and we would think of it as, "daily show" comes up with a somewhat humorous look at what they think is a hypocritical stance on personal freedoms. and that's the weight that it should be given. charlie: but you licked your chops when you saw hypocrisy like you had not seen before. if you thought it was hypocritical, you would just say -- jon: it was animated by visceral feelings, no question. because that's the stuff that -- this show is basically just -- if you imagine in general, and i hate to do this to your audience, i don't know if this is pbs, so, you want to go a --

to do a trigger warning, but, "the daily show" was a satirical expression of me sitting in front of my television in my underwear yelling at the television. now i just get to go back to doing that. chris: there's a point in the book where a lot of different people, among them a guy named leader inas been a pushing for health care for 9/11 first responders. charlie: the feel good foundation. chris: right. they walk us through what jon and others did to get the permanent extension of the zadroga bill a little while back. and jon at one point -- charlie: saw as much passion from you on the issue. chris: yeah. we can debate influence and power. there were points where "the daily show" had real impact. real-world impact. jon does not get up and raise his hand and say, i did that. but there are a lot of first responders who are going to have

their medical bills paid in large part because of his focus on this. but in that discussion, jon at one point in the book says, in some ways the debate over zadroga is what "the daily show" for me was about. a lot of people looking at something in a commonsense way and saying, isn't this crazy, that this isn't getting done, why isn't this happening? charlie: it was the commonsense argument. chris: yes. i think he and the show were ahead of the curve. people talk about this in the book. in recognizing, on left and the right, how government was not functioning for a lot of average americans. they pointed that out in all sorts of ways. from the health care debate to the government shutdown to minimum wage. all sorts of things over the years.

>> at one point there was a former correspondent who wasn't on the show for a long period of time, and in some ways had an up -- had a very unhappy experience there. but in some ways people who have had unhappy experiences think deeper about what worked and what didn't. he talks in there about how he doesn't think bernie sanders would have been possible if not for "the daily show." there's a generation of people who grew up thinking about government and hypocrisy and politicians in terms that jon and "the daily show" defined. i think that's true in the sense -- media sense that you have a lot of younger reporters that grew up watching "the daily show" and in this campaign, maybe it was too little too late, maybe it was more print than tv. but, can we curse? there were a lot of people in this campaign who called bull [beep]. annotating lies.

footnoting every lie in a donald trump speech was something that jon and "the daily show" had done with bush, had done with obama, all along. and that kind of thing, you know, you can point to filtering through media culture. you have to meet force with force. jon: and "the daily show" is, what i would say we are, and, again, i'm not saying this to denigrate what we did. i am so incredibly proud of -- this was the best iteration of, for me, what i could do with satire and we prosecuted it to its fullest extent as far as my brain could go. jon: one of the reasons i left was i was going to be redundant and go back and forth with the same thing. i'm going to really do a terrible analogy. we were patrick swayze after he died in "ghost." we were in the subway yelling at

dead people. and raging and no one could hear us. but if we focused everything that we had in one moment, at just the right time, at just the right moment, with everything we had, we could move the can just a little bit. do you understand what i'm saying? charlie: yes. jon: do you understand what i am saying? we're impotently raging. zadroga was 10 years of backbreaking labor by john feel and these first responders. it was corruption at a government level at the highest order that could be done. it was the people that had been hailed as heroes, manning the burning buildings, told by the epa that the air was safe but , the air was not safe. they are dying. they continue to die to this day. they were forced, with all their

afflictions, to go down and, hat in hand, knock on doors to people who wouldn't even meet their eye sight and those 10 years of working, they did all the construction. at the very end, cindy came in with just a little star and went, bink. and got way more credit for it than was deserved. they deserve that and continue to. the ultimate irony of this election is, the cynical strategy of the republicans, which is, our position is government doesn't work. we're going to make sure that it doesn't work. charlie: drain the swamp. jon: but they're not draining the swamp. mcconnell and ryan are the swamp. what they decided to do was, i'm going to make sure government doesn't work and then i'm going to use its lack of working as evidence of it. donald trump is a reaction not just to democrats, to republicans. he's not a republican. he's a repudiation of republicans. but they will reap the benefit of his victory. in all of their cynicism.

and all of their -- i will guarantee you, republicans are going to come to jesus now about the power of government. they are going to suddenly realize that, you know what, government authority is actually not tyranny when we've won it. it's actually authority. and consent to the people. you know what, you want an infrastructure project, and let me give you that and tax cuts. and let's see how far we can take that. that's the irony of it. ♪

charlie: when we began this conversation, you were arguing that this country has had a long and tortured history on debating on these things. jon: not that debate. on race. that is a different debate. i'm talking about the foundational creed of the country, which is, we are not, you know, originally we were just white anglo-saxon protestant. like with immigration -- charlie: men. jon: you know who symbolizes the complexity and frustration of this country, is probably more than anybody, susan b. anthony. she was a suffragette. she fought desperately for women. she was a hero. when people were voting for hillary, putting stickers on her grave and all that. but she was also, i think, steeped in racism. and did not want black men to vote before women got to vote. because that wouldn't have been fair to her because white women,

right, white is better than black men. so, it's -- those are the inherent contradictions. does that negate all the good that she did? of course not. but it tells the story with the complexity that it deserves. and hopefully allows us to see each other more clearly and have an empathy and compassion for the complexities of peoples', you know, hierarchies of needs, and not negate people for the worst statement they ever did or, in the liberal community, you hate this idea of creating people as a monolith. don't look as muslims as a monolith. they are individuals and it would be ignorance. but everybody who voted for trump is a monolith, a racist. that is, again, like, that hypocrisy is also real in our country. this is the fight that we wage against ourselves and each other. because america's not natural.

natural is tribal. we're fighting against thousands of years of human behavior and history to create something that no one's ever -- that's what's exceptional about america. and that's what's, like, this ain't easy. it's an incredible thing. chris: one of the things i hope the book does is illustrate that in some small way, jon and the show, made, over the course of the year, as the show evolved, a very determined attempt to diversify the ranks. from off camera to on camera. near the end of jon's run there, there was a little hubbub about a confrontation he had with one of the correspondents. an african-american.

we go into some detail about how and why that happened. i think it's a fascinating illustration of how people of good intention, of strong values, these are tough things to wrestle with day in and day out, in workplaces and creative environments. a fascinating total coincidence, when this story broke publicly. ta-nehisi coates was his guest. he was not aware of any of this back story. i interviewed coates for the book. he said, i thought something really interesting, he said, you know, people struggle with racism in good ways all the time that we don't see and hear about. we hear about the confrontation, the conflict. and to him, yeah, what jon did over the course of a number of years sometimes didn't make everybody happy, but was moving the ball forward.

was of good intention and progressive in every way. charlie: to create diversity there. chris: yes. jon: when you are faced with that type of criticism, your first response is generally defensive. -- defensiveness. when we first started the show, comedy was the -- especially late night, was the realm of late night ironists. just very, very witty and people who did very well in their s.a.t.'s and wrote for their parody papers at their colleges. the room was populated with a variety of relatively unathletic white men. charlie: who love sports. jon: who did not love sports. and you would find, usually i'd have one guy who would be like, did you see the giants game last

night, yes, and then we'd go back to the marvel universe. [laughter] when you are in it, sometimes the systems that perpetuate different forms of either racism or patriarch or other things, you don't even realize you're in it when you're in it. and you certainly don't think that of yourself. so an article that came out that said, they don't have any women writing for the show and, you know, on and on about that sort of thing. my first response to it was, they don't understand, there are women here, they're empowered, this is not a sexist environment. i was raised by a single mother. i went through every little, you know, who do they think -- and there were things in the article that i thought were like cheap shots and, what are they -- then i sat in the writers' room and i looked around and i was like, oh. we're all just white dudes. in various forms of facial hair.

i took that as diversity. what i looked at as the metrics of diversity in the writing staff was, that's a one-line guy. that guy thinks more in terms of structure. that's a good narrative guy. this guy's crazy. we're going to stay out of his way. every three weeks he's going to say something and we're going to go, that's great. charlie: that justifies your existence. jon: right. so we'd had a policy at the show that you don't put your name on your submissions. we thought that's what made us progressive. but what we forgot was, the system doesn't funnel you women, it funnels you the same people it's been funneling for 20, 30 years. it's a self-perpetuating system. so if i call a bunch of agents and go, i'm looking for writers, they're going to send me 100 white male writers. now, i'm not going to look at their names because i don't want to be prejudiced. but what you forget is, change is effort.

and it's not effort for effort's sake. it's effort because it makes the show better, stronger, different view points are what gave the show strength. so what we had to say is, by the way, like, thank you for sending those things. send me your women. get me those submissions, please. the same with when we're adding correspondents. but you have to do that actively. and you deserve no credit for that. but it is -- you have to, to a large extent, inertia is tacit in its complexity with the system. charlie: by doing so you're ignoring half of the population. jon: and you're not getting the best stuff. chris: and this is something, it was certainly not publicly known, jon in a variety of respects over the years felt the need, ok, i'm going to be out there talking about veterans, i'm going it make jokes, i should go to the v.a. and actually talk to some veterans.

and see -- charlie: what did you do? did you leave that ah-ha moment in the writers' room? did you change immediately? jon: everybody has blind spots. it is very hard to overcome your own ignorance. that's what i had to face in myself. which is, you know, it's gut wrenching sometimes. charlie: do you think, because of all this, and you found the right expression, is the word i used earlier, that you can find something that's equally right for you again? or do you just simply hit a home run there, you found the perfect place for you, and it was 17 years of -- jon: yes. i'll never have that again. but i shouldn't.

it was a gift that was -- that i was fortunate enough to be graced with for all that time and to be in contact with all those incredible people. but i don't expect to find that again. but what i found is a more balanced existence that, where i get -- there's a difference between satisfaction and joy. this gave me great satisfaction. and it gave me great confidence. but joy, joy, driving a couple of knucklehead kids home from school that i get to sit and listen -- joy. you need to have that as well. this was an obsession. that i think to be able to do it as well as we did, to me felt like the only way that we could do it. but at a certain point, you have to hang up your cleats and go, i got out of this more than

anybody, my cup runneth over. and it's time to cede that to someone else whose enthusiasm and vigor and intellectual curiosity will carry this forward. and evolve it in new ways. and bring it to a place that it needs to be. that i am incapable of doing. charlie: did you find that joy in making movies? jon: work is work. people say, like, oh, when you're not working, man, when something happens and you're not at work, do you think, like, oh, i wish i was at work. you're like -- has that ever happened to you in your life? where you're not at work and you think to yourself, oh, wow, i just heard there was -- i work i wish i was at work. at a bar and i heard a bus load of people came in looking for drinks. man, i wish i was back there. charlie: what's the most unusual insight from the book? from all the interviews, all the people that were part of "the daily show" family, that you had the privilege to talk to and to get their sense what have was -- what was going on? chris: i don't know unusual so

much as striking, that so many of the people working there were -- unaware is too strong -- but didn't realize or didn't take in how much the outside world was paying attention. because the grind is actually doing the show day in and day out and the ethos, that jon set was, you know, we're not running around, we won these emmy awards, speaking truth to power, it was about showing up and doing the best show that day possible. sure, they knew people were paying attention, they knew, you know, they'd go out to the emmys and accept awards. but the ability to stay in the moment of the creation of the show to me was really kind of surprising. charlie: you do accept this idea that, because of the audience, even people who said it was

their source of news, as you know, were influenced by "the daily show" in terms of their curiosity in terms of a mindset, , and that those young people especially are going out now and doing things, really interesting stuff. they have been influenced by you. jon: right. charlie: as a teacher has an influence. jon: if it stimulated a curiosity for people to make arguments, you know, if it stimulated curiosity for people to look at, to look behind the veil of what is seen publicly and try to deconstruct what they see on television and what they see in political campaigns, i would consider that an incredible compliment to the show and to the legacy. charlie: and to you. jon: as my name was on it. but i would also caution anybody into -- like, it did come from our perspective. there were a lot of people out there who thought it was unfair.

one of the big things people say is, oh, when people push back you say, i'm just a comedian. i never really said that. chris: i claim to have seen and heard every utterance of jon's in 20 years, but i'll vouch for that. he never said, i'm just a comedian. he took responsibility in all kinds of ways for the point of view as well as the jokes. jon: the intention was not to propagandize. the intention was to see if could you make your argument in a really interesting and smart way. charlie: you come away with, both from the book and this conversation, is that comedy and satire ain't easy. "the daily show (the book): an oral history," is told by jon stewart, the correspondent staff, and, yes, written by chris smith, forward by jon stewart. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

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angie: it is mounted here in hong kong. i'm angie lau with an update of your top stories -- it is noon here in hong kong. a civil penalty from the justice department for deutsche bank, with a provision for consumers. meanwhile, the justice weretment suing barclays allegedly deceiving investors who bought mortgage-backed andrities between 2005 2007. it alleges the bank repeatedly deceived investors about the quality of the loans. 'sd italy