♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: welcome to the program, tonight, jon stewart, the former "daily show" host is the subject of a new book called "the daily show (the book): an oral history as told by jon stewart, the correspondents, staff and guests . jon: any artistic pursuit, is a relatively selfish pursuit. it is a catharsis for the individual, and a way to express ideas and get them out and feel the seduction of it is, is it going to score or not? that is the hit, that is the adrenaline.

but what begins to wear on you is where it is taken. and i think this election could be a great lesson in that controlling the culture, is not the same thing as power. charlie: jon stewart, for the hour, next. ♪ charlie: jon stewart, thank you for doing this. jon: thank you for having us. charlie: why this, why an oral history. chris: well, the title, "if i did it," was taken. so we had to go with "an oral history." because -- charlie: because it is an oral history -- chris yes, the people who wrote : and performed this show are so

interesting, and are not terribly well known as the head of the 22 minutes per night that jon and everyone else did for 16 years. certainly stephen colbert has done interviews, samantha bee as well, that the actual process, of the making of the show that was not something that was kept secret, but was kept close because jon and everyone else was so focused on those four days a week. and just getting it done. a that is a really hard job. the actual process, the evolution, the growth internally and externally, was a story best told by the people who lived it. charlie: so you go to john, and everyone else and asked them if they would do this and cooperate and instantly they said yes? jon: yes, i have known him for a long time. i have known chris a long time and always enjoyed his reporting. he always came at things from a really thorough and fair -- when you are reading his work, in new york magazine and other places, it always felt

invested but not purposefully pejorative. it was just really well done. and i thought we were so involved over the 16 years, people have always said, what was it like? what was your favorite part? and i would say, i do not know -- charlie: you learn something about it -- jon: absolutely. charlie: about the perspective of the people you were with. jon: absolutely. and if it was going to be told, i wanted it to be told as thoroughly and fairly as it could possibly be. i thought chris was a great reporter to be able to do that. charlie: over the 16 years, how did the show evolved? what does it become that it was not at the beginning? jon: i think of the evolution of the show -- we just became better at doing it. it is not that it is -- there are two separate things, what the show became and what people

thought of the show, on the -- and the outside perspective of it. that was the thing that i think, about,d to chris a lot you had to ignore. what we tried to develop was a decent internal barometer of what worked for the show and how well we could execute it. so, you could not look at a piece and go -- i do not know if this is emmy-worthy, and we are an emmy award-winning show! you had to keep your own morality and integrity as the beacons for where you wanted a material to go. charlie: was your instinct almost always write about what he be -- about what would be funny or not? jon: i think we got better at that, there is something fragile about comedy, and musical, and one man's meat is another man's pratfall.

i can say that there were things we wrote that we thought were really funny, where the audience might not read and other things where you would do a joke in there would be upon and the ship -- pine and the crowd go bananas. and you would stop and go really? , we would spend a whole day crafting this really beautiful comedic essay, and you really thought the little pun on double -- little pun on the 007? in terms of the abolition -- , peoplen of the show forget "the daily show" existed before jon stewart. craig kilborn was the host for close to three years. and they laid a really good foundation in some ways, with the mock correspondents, the satire of the news. the tone and the focus was very different. it was much more of a parody, of local newscasts in a way that

could be a mean-spiritedness in the material. they were much more interested in celebrity and hollywood and showbiz stuff. and it punched down at times, in a way that could be funny, but was kind of ephemeral. one thing interesting in talking to jon and other folks there at the time when he came in at 1999 , he knew he wanted to be more substantive. but he did not have blueprint.an, a ok, here is where we are going. charlie: you just said, i want to last nine months? charlie: yes, i had been fired enough. charlie: do you know why he was successful this time? chris: -- charlie: was it the best extension of your talent? jon: yes. i did not necessarily know that

at the time. but beyond that, cable is a different animal, especially during that time. it had a different level of pressures, and a different level of performance. you were able to use it as a laboratory in ways that you would not be able to do on a network. the network lives and dies by whereas cable lives and dies by the carriage. charlie: they have two revenue streams. jon: their goal was to throw things out there, and i knew that we had more time. i think maybe that allowed me a little more confidence to push it. and i had to push them as well, because it was not necessarily the direction they wanted to go in. charlie: but you were running the show too, you were there in the trenches. jon: i would not research to my -- i would not refer to myself

-- [laughter] the number of digestive metaphors involved in the creation of "the daily show" -- charlie: what did it become? it became for us a cultural event, more than a show. and jon touched on this as well. it is easy to forget what the media world looks like 1997, 1998, 1999. when comedy central was still kind of a sketchy proposition. msnbc and fox news had just launched at the same time "the daily show" has come into being. facebook did not exist, as now it is had a major influence on an election, a presidential election! jon: it came a frozen and you had to heat it by hand!

it was a different time. [laughter] charlie: we just went through an election. jon: what? charlie: yes. your reaction to the presidential election? jon: surprise. here is what i would honestly say. i do not believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks ago or than we were a month ago. the same country, with all of its grace and flaws and volatility and insecurity and strength and resilience, it exists today as it existed three -- two weeks ago. the same country that elected donald trump elected barack obama. and those contradictions are, this election to me is just another extension of the long argument that we have had from our founders.

which is, what are we? are we an ideal, or are or are we some form of ethnostate? that argument has existed for -- existed on a philosophical and theoretical level. i feel badly for the people for whom this election will mean more uncertainty and insecurity. but, i also feel like this fight has never been easy. i think, it is odd, it is like we are a couple who met, and the first fight we had when we met was -- look, the people had -- the people on our money had slaves. the people we honor had slaves. the people who wrote "all men are created equal" had slaves.

it is not like they did not know what was wrong. charlie: many of them came from slaveowning states. jon: right. so the argument between wirral and urban, the ideals of inalienable rights and slavery, we have that argument over and over again. at times it has been more volatile. at times it has been more violent. but it has never been easy. fighting for this, i do not see as some form of endpoint. it is 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, nobody asked donald trump what makes america great. that was the part that i -- charlie: he wants to make america great again, but nobody asked him what makes america great? what is it that you want to do? what is it that we are not doing now?

jon: what are the metrics? by listening to him, it looks like the metrics are that it is a competition. it is wins and losses. we are going to win more. is that what makes us great? what many would say is that what makes us great is that nobody -- america is an anomaly in the world. there are a lot of people, and i think his candidacy has animated that thought, that a multiethnic democracy, a multicultural democracy is impossible. and that is what america, by its founding and constitutionally is -- charlie: and is becoming more and more, year by year! jon: correct. charlie: some people thought that it meant something's different for them, that their life would be changed, and there was a certain fear. jon: no question. the insecurities that people feel as marginalized populations

our also felt -- a rust belt worker that lost his job in manufacturing feels and insecurity. look at all of the terrible things he says, and they might say -- i live in an area that voted for him. charlie: the question is, did democrats and secretary clinton open the door for donald because she could not or did not speak to them? jon: whether or not she opened the door or not, i do not think it was her door to open. you are talking about a global issue. globalization and the pushback of that, in ethnostates it makes more sense. we have an ethnic identity. but when you live in a state that is an ideal, then what is the bar of entry? the bar of entry is, i agree with you. people have inalienable rights,

and can i come in? as long as you behave in that manner. let us not pretend this is not a battle that has been revisited time and time again. and that is why, i feel like we have a resilience to it. that we have to continue to fight. ♪ ♪

charlie: did you miss it during the campaign? jon: god no!

charlie: you are not able to do what you just did? tell us what you thought both , with satire and comedy, and with reason? jon: no. chris: because impotent rage weighs on you. charlie: meaning that you could not make a difference, so it gave you rage? jon: any the artistic pursuit, whatever effect it has on its artist, is a relatively selfish pursuit. it is a catharsis for the individual. it is a way to get ideas out. the seduction of it is, is it going to score or not. that is the hits, that is the adrenaline. but, what begins to wear on you is where it is taken. i think this election could be a

great lesson in that, controlling the culture, is not the same thing as power. a viral video eviscerating racists is not the same as a grassroots movement that seeks to have a common ground with people and create a multiethnic coalition that understands that other people's hierarchy of needs is not necessarily your hierarchy of needs. but the idea of what "the daily show" became was not something that had been banging around in your head when you took this job. jon: well, 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 had hosted talk shows, i did one on mtv and another on a syndicate. and i was spending 12 hours a day on the

things that did not feel substantial or meaningful to me. this is a chance to, can i express my comedy about things that i care about in a way that is entertaining enough that i will not get fired? because i had been fired. and when you get fired and your name is on the show, it is hard might suck at you this! and you have to reevaluate, if i'm going to put myself in that position then, i am going to lay it on the line. and i am going to put out there what i care about. charlie: if i go down i am going , to go down doing it my way. jon: that is right. i am going to do down the way i feel like. and away i feel is the best iteration of my abilities, and if that goes down, i can

bartend. charlie: yes, you could. [laughter] charlie: was there a moment a , time, an event, where you said -- we've got it! we have traction! i can be confirmed in my belief, that what i was willing -- 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 of what i wanted to do and was insisting on doing has been -- jon: you have talked to a bunch of people, haven't you? i would say that it was never about -- it was more about, will we be able to develop a process where we can do that well? inherent juxtaposition of the creative pursuit. is we build a machine that

redundant enough and rigid enough that it can -- it can sustain inspiration? charlie: when did that process kick in? jon: that was not my concern. chris: when did that happen? [laughter] chris: it really took shape through the 2000 campaign and the recount, the day-to-day process. like jon says, the technology eventually caught up with what "the daily show" was doing. they pioneered it in some ways, not just to perform, but the assembly of these kinds of montages. what was equally important, was not simply the process of having a meeting at 9:00, and we need this -- what they found earlier -- early on was a tone to what they wanted to do.

while events went on in the outside world that changed what they thought they found a , tone and a piece that steve carell did with john mccain on the straight talk express in late 1999. carell does a preamble where he is chasing the boss and trying to get on the bus -- there were two press buses, and they would not let us in. one was for mainstream press, one had a nicer air-conditioning and the bathroom. conditionsled by the and lets him onto the bus. what you do not know watching the finished piece is all of the work that went into this. it became a prototype of how jon shifted field pieces away from, his phrase, abject cruelty to actual point of view. [laughter] carell and the producer of the peace, a guy

named mike mckinney, had laid out a series of questions. carell is a world-class improviser, so that if you asked this question, and he says next, -- he says x, here is how you respond. the difficulty is you have , world-class improvisers working with civilians who do not know that they are in an improv. so they develop all of these questions about what they will ask mccain, and most of them are softball, like what kind of , tree would you be? what became famous at the end of that piece, and a turning point in the development of the show, was that steve carell asked mccain, senator, you have been a strident opponent of porkbarrel spending. how can you justify that when you were a chair of the commerce committee, you ok'd billions of dollars in porkbarrel spending? and mccain freezes, it is a deer in the headlights moment.

and then carell bursts the tension by saying -- i was just joking, i do not even know what that means. what was fascinating to me, and carell did not even remember until i talked to him they found that question in time , magazine when driving over to the shoot! that kind of structure and last-minute improvisatory genius was something that jon created that held throughout his run at the show. jon: but it also brings up an interesting -- which is the crux -- of "the daily show" paradox. which is in that moment, you hold to account a senator whose entire identity is based on a hypocritical behavior. i am against this type of porkbarrel politics, unless it benefits [indiscernible]

charlie: unless it benefits the good people of arizona. jon: we nailed you, and what do we have to do at that point? we let you go. it is catch and release, because we had to undercut it with a laugh. it gets to the joy and frustration of doing that kind of job. it is when we realized that access did not help us. it is that idea of -- i got you! here is my one moment, and i am going to, with a scalpel, though -- go at the crux of your identity as a politician and expose it for everybody to see, and then i will have to make a joke about it and walk away. and you will laugh, and it will humanize you. one of the difficulties of this is that 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. once that started to happen, i think you began to question if it is a good thing or a bad thing. i know it is not a black and white issue, but controlling the culture -- for as much fun as we could make about the tea showing well we were videos of eviscerations, they ram the -- off the highway taking over a school , board. the populars won vote by probably more than one million votes. and they do not control the presidency, the house, the senate, they do not control governorships, state legislatures. this may be the largest disconnect between majority rule and majority power that we had in this country in ages!

i am in no way saying we are responsible. [laughter] i am saying, there is a comfort in culture that can be mistaken for real power. there are only two towns in the world that i've been to that i thought were delusional. one was washington, d.c., and the other was los angeles. the only difference between the two of them was that in los angeles, they actually believe that they have power. in d.c, that is where it is. charlie: in d.c., they have power. in l.a., they just believe they have power. it is the same arrogance. so you're saying essentially, that whatever we say about culture, and the end it is not political power, and in the end it is not? jon: in the end it is not real cultural influence, either. it is a story we tell ourselves about the rightness of our position.

but it is argument, and it is not without weight, but it is not with so much weight. i believe that culture played a good role in marriage equality. it brought a story out that had been -- so much of what occurs with inequality is ignorance. i do not mean that in a malevolent way, i mean that in the way of, my have no experience, i do not know what that is! so exposure to that can be positive. generally in the entertainment sense -- charlie: do you think people came as guests because they wanted the numbers you had, or wanted to reach the audience you had? jon: yes. charlie: or because they enjoyed it it , is give them a sense of being part of something that was hip and in? jon: i would say they did not enjoy it. he talked to them. chris: to that point, chris wallace, from 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." and it felt like you had been invited to become a member of a hipper club. charlie: and you had the ticket to that club. that is power! chris: to a club? jon: power in the way that a bouncer might have power. i was a bouncer at a club that did pretty well. but i will tell you drive ,down 14 to avenue, the ain't there anymore. it is a condo now! chris: i walked past fox news world headquarters, and there is a marching band, free jell-o shots, dancing girls, apparently they won. charlie: but speaking of fox news, it was a gift that kept on giving? jon: not the gift they kept on giving. ofwas the relentless offer

-- 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: fair and balanced! jon: which may be the most cynical expression of any slogan in the history of slogans. that would be like if coca-cola said of their slogan was "healthy vitamins for children." fox news is reactionary. "the daily show" was reactionary. a lot of this media is a reaction to what they see as either unfairness or something hidden. charlie: did you see what you were doing as simply offering an alternative to what fox is saying? jon: no.

we saw it as -- the headline for it on huffington post would be -- stuart eviscerates arguments against gay marriage! we would think of it as, "the daily show" comes up with a much more humorous look at what they think is a hypocritical stance on personal freedoms. that is the weight that it should be given. charlie: but you saw hypocrisy like you have never seen before, that would be the point where you would say? jon: it was animated by visceral feelings, no question. this show is basically -- if you imagine in general, and i hate to do this dear audience, i do not know if show"pbs -- "the daily

was a satirical expression of me sitting in my underwear yelling at the television. and now i get to go back to doing that. charlie: just not on tv? chris: there was a point in the book where a lot of the people, among them a guy named john field who has been a leader in pushing for health care for our 9/11 first responders. they walked us through what john -- through what jon and others did to get the permanent extension of the bill. -- the zadroga bill. passion for an issue. chris: we could debate influence and power. there were points where "the daily show" had real-world impact. jon does not get up and raise his hand and say, i

did that. but a lot of first responders will have their medical bills paid because of his focus on this. and 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 all about. a lot of people looking at something in a common sense way and saying, isn't this crazy it is not getting done? why isn't this happening? charlie: it was the commonsense argument. chris: right. he ended the show were ahead of the curve for recognizing how on the left and on the right, how the government was not functioning for a lot of average americans. they pointed it out in all sorts of ways. from the health-care debate to the government shut down, the minimum wage. all sorts of things. katrina. point, there is a former

correspondent who was not on the show along period of time. and in some ways had an unhappy experience. they think deeper about what worked and what didn't. he talks about how he does not think bernie sanders would have been possible if not for "the daily show." that there is a generation of people who grew up thinking that government and hypocrisy, and politician in terms that jon and "the daily show" defined. you have a lot of younger reporters to grow up watching "the daily show." maybe in this campaign it was too little too late, maybe it was more print than tv. can we curse? charlie: yes. chris: there were a lot of people in this campaign who called the bull --. annotating every lie in donald trump's speech was something

that the daily show had done with bush, obama, all along. you have to filter through the media culture. jon: you have to meet force with force. i am so incredibly proud -- this was the best iteration of, for me, what i could do with satire. we prosecuted it to its fullest extent as far as i'm concerned. as far as my brain could go. wasof the reasons i left because i would just be redundant and go back and forth with the same thing. i am really going to do a terrible analogy, but, we were patrick swayze after he died in "ghost." [laughter] jon: 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 that we had, we can move the can just a little bit. would you like to talk about the pottery scene? [laughter] jon: do you understand? we were impotently raging the thing. zadroga was 10 years of backbreaking labor by john field and these first responders. it was corruption at the government level at the highest order that could be done. it was the people that had been hailed as heroes, running into burning buildings, told by our government and the epa that the air was safe, but it was not safe. they are dying, they continue to die to this day. they were forced with all their afflictions, to go down hat , in hand, knock on doors to

people who would not meet their eyesight. those 10 years of working, they did all of the construction. and at the very end, cindy loo hoo came in with a little star and went, bink, and got a little star and got way more credit than deserved. the ultimate irony of this election is the strategy of the republicans which is -- our position our best we are going to make sure that it does not work. charlie: draining the swamp. jon: yes, draining the swamp. but mcconnell and all of those the swamp. they decided, i will make sure government will not work and use its lack of working as evidence of it. donald trump is a reaction, not just to democrats, but to republicans. he is not a republican, but he a repudiation of republicans, but they will reap the benefit of his victory in all of their cynicism. willrantee you republicans

come to jesus now about the power of government. it will suddenly realize that government authority is not tyranny. when we won it. it is actually authority, and consent of the people. if you want an infrastructure project, let me give you that and tax cuts. and let us see how far we can take that. ♪ ♪

charlie: when we began the

conversation you were arguing this country had a long end -- and tortured history of going back and forth on these debates. jon: not on this debate, but on a race. i am talking about the foundational creed of the country, which is, we are not -- originally we were just white anglo-saxon protestants, and with immigration -- charlie: white anglo-saxon protestant men. jon: yes. whatever symbolizes the frustration of this country is more than anything, susan b anthony. she was a suffragette who fought desperately for women. the hero. they put stickers on her grave. but i think she was also steeped in racism and did not want black men to vote before women got the right to vote. [laughter] because "white is better than black, man!", but does that -- those are the inherent

contradiction. does that negate all the good she did? not.urse but it tells the story with the complexity it deserves and hopefully allows us to see each other more clearly and have an empathy and compassion for the complexity of people's hierarchy of needs and not negate people for the worst statement that they have ever did. or -- in the liberal community, you hate this idea of treating people as a monolith. do not look at muslims as monoliths. they are individuals. but everybody who voted for trump is a monolith. is a racist. that is again -- that hypocrisy is also real in our country. and so, this is the fight that we wage against ourselves and each other, because america is not natural. natural is tribal. we are fighting against thousands of years of human behavior in history to create something that no one has ever -- that is what is exceptional

about america, this ain't easy. it is 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 years as the show evolves, a very determined attempt to diversify the ranks. from off-camera to on camera. of jon's run was a hubbub about a confrontation he had with one of the correspondents, who was african-american. and we go into some detail about how and why that happened. and i think it is 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 happened to be jon's guest that day. he was a friend of him, not aware of any of this act story. i interviewed coates for the book, and he said i thought something interesting -- people struggle with racism in good ways all the time, that we do not see or hear about. we only hear about the confrontation and conflict. to him, what jon did over the course of a number of years, sometimes did not make everyone happy, but was moving the ball forward. it was of good intention and progressive in every way. charlie: to create diversity

there? jon: yes. when you are faced with that type of criticism, your first response is generally defensiveness. when we first started the show, comedy was, especially late was the realm of the late-night ironists. just a very witty, people that t.'s.ery well on the s.a. they wrote further parody papers at their colleges. relatively unathletic white men. charlie: who love sports? wholie: who did not -- jon: did not love sports. you would find one guy who would love sports. then we would talk about the marvel universe. [laughter] --:

jon: when you are in it, sometimes the systems that perpetuate different forms of either racism or patriarchy or any of those things, you do not even realize you're in it when you are. and you certainly do not think that of yourself. an article came out that said they do not have any women writing for the show, and on and on. my first response to it was -- they do not understand that there are women here, they are empowered. this is not a sexist environment. i was raised by a single mother. there were things in the article which i thought were cheap shots. then i sat in the writer's room and looked around and i said oh, we are all just white dudes! with various forms of facial hair. and i took that as diversity. what i took as much excelled diversity in a writing staff was

that guy is a one-liner guy that , guy is a good narrative guy, this guy is crazy, we will stay out of his way. every three weeks he will say something we will save was great. charlie:? -- charlie: that justified your existence? jon: right. so we had a policy in the show that you do not put your name on your submissions. we thought that was what made us progressive, but what we forgot was that the system does not finally you women, it funnels the same people it has been funneling for 20 or 30 years. it is a self-perpetuating system. so if i call my agents and go, i'm looking for writers, they're going to send me 100 white male writers. now, i will not look at their names, because i do not want to be prejudiced. but what you forget is change is effort. and it is not effort for effort's sake, it is effort because it makes the show better, stronger, with different

viewpoints which gave the show , strength. we had to say, thank you for saying those things, send me your women! get me those submissions please! the same with when we are adding , correspondents. but you have to do that actively. you deserve no credit for that, but you have to, to a large , inertia is tacit in it's complicity with cynicism. charlie: essentially were ignoring a large part of the population. chris: jon, in a variety of respects over the years felt -- i will be out there talking about veterans, i will make jokes, i should go to the veterans administration and actually talk to veterans. charlie: what did you do, did you leave that aha moment in the writer's room?

jon: everybody has blind spots and it is very hard to overcome your own ignorance. that is what i had to face in myself, which is, it is taxing -- it is gut wrenching sometimes. charlie: do you think because of all of this you found the right , expression, that you could find something that is equally right for you again, or did you just simply hit a home run their, you found the perfect place for you, and it was 17 years ago? jon: yes. i will never have that again, but i should not. it was a gift that was -- that i was fortunate enough to be graced with for all of that time, and to be in contact with all of those incredible people. i do not expect to find it

again, but what i found is a more balanced existence where i get -- there is a difference between satisfaction and joy. this gave me great satisfaction. it gave me great confidence, but joy, joy, driving a couple of knucklehead kids home from school, joy. and you need to have that as well. and this was an obsession that i think, to be able to do it as well as we did, to me, it 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 is time to cede that to someone else whose enthusiasm and vigor and intellectual curiosity will carry this forward and bring it to a

place 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, when you're not working when something happens , and you are not at work, you say, oh, i wish i was at work. has that ever happened to you in your life? when you are not at work and you think to yourself -- i heard something come up i worked in a bar, and a bunch of people came in for drinks and i wish it was back there? charlie: what is your most unusual insight from the book, from all of the people that were part of "the daily show" family the , people that you got a chance to talk to and get a sense of what was going on? chris: i don't know that it was unusual so much as striking, that so many of the people

working there were -- unaware is too strong -- did not realize how much the outside world was paying attention. because the grind of actually doing the show, day in and day set, we the ethos jon were not running around saying, these and the awards and the speaking truth to power -- it was about doing the best show possible. they knew people were paying attention. they would go 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. this ideaou do accept that because of the audience, even people who said it was their source of news were ." luenced by "the daily show

those young people are going out now in doing this. they were influenced by you. as a teacher, as an influence. jon: is stimulated curiosity for people to look beyond the veil of what is seen publicly and try to deconstruct what is seen on television or in political campaigns, if that is the case i would consider that an incredible complement to the show and to the legacy. charlie: and to you? jon: as my name was on it. but i would also caution anybody -- 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 would say when people push back, you say, oh i am just a comedian. but i never really said that. chris: i can claim to have seen and heard every utterance of jon's in 20 years, and i will vouch for that. he never said i am just a

,comedian. he took responsibility in all kinds of ways for the point of view as well as the jokes. jon: and the material. i think it came from crossfire. i am on comedy central. the point is not to say, this is comedy, it does not matter. the point of it is to say that the language of satire is different from the language of news, and the language of media. our weapons are hyperbole and satire and hard juxtapositions that are a cudgel, when news media might use a scalpel. we stood by our arguments. and when our arguments were wrong, or if we thought it was unfair and we took it out of context, we had to own it and apologize for that, because that was not the intention. the intention was not to propagandize, but to make your argument in a really interesting

and smart way, that was funny. but that was also as unassailable as it could be on the facts. charlie: from the book and from the conversation, what you come away with is that comedy and satire, ain't easy, it is hard. and the pursuit of it is a daily demand and requires a process. jon: i think what i try to come out of it is excellence is hard. and competence is hard, and the pursuit of that is the process, whether it be satire or interviews or news. every artist i have ever really admired, and i delve into their process. it is always the same, it is always deconstructive, somewhat obsessive and intentional. i think you can translate that ethos, not

just to satire, but any profession. if your aim is to challenge yourself and be excellent, and improve, and truly try -- one of the things i hated about the movie reviews that i got, was that they came out after the movie. [laughter] jon: because you read through it, you thought some of them are unfair and then some of them you went and said, why did they not tell me that before? you have to be able to handle and synthesize constructive criticism because that is what makes you better. all processes are drafts, first draft, second draft, third draft, revision. that is what i feel like, it is a methodology that you can apply to anything that is done. that is why i have such great admiration for people who excel at what they do. because i know what goes into it, nothing is an accident. charlie: the book is "the daily show (the book): an oral history as told by jon stewart, the correspondents, staff and guests." thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ >> i'm emma chandra in new

york, and you are watching "bloomberg technology." let's start with a check of your first word news. president trump is in texas to witness the devastation from harvey and the ongoing recovery efforts. he arrived in austin today and corpus christi where harvey made landfall. trump hopes his administration's response to the hurricane devastation will be regarded as a model for the future. governor greg abbott called the white house's response so far very effective. monday he said he would grade the response an a+. vice president mike pence is warning that the flooding will continue. he spoke today in san antonio and