Last March, Jon Stewart was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for America Humor, surrounded by some of the biggest names in the business that included more than a few Daily Show alum that owe their careers to him. Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Steve Carrell, and many more gathered at the Kennedy Center to praise and mock Stewart’s contributions to humor and America. You can see the whole event on PBS through July 19th, but one of the standouts of the standups was SNL-ruiner and rumored massive dong-haver Pete Davidson, who married tame chop-busting with tearful praise for Stewart’s political activism.
“Jon is really such an exceptional person that, you know, he really could be President tomorrow, and he’s smart enough to not want the job,” Davidson said. “But he is a leader. In 2019, he testified before Congress about our government’s shameful lack of healthcare for the men and women who responded to the events of September 11th. People like my dad who ran into the towers that day, but instead of, you know, giving their lives in a moment, they walked away with a lifetime of illness and pain. And Jon sat with those responders behind him and Congress before him, and gave the least funny speech he’s ever made.”
The clip of Stewart’s emphatic, emotional plea to Congress was a fitting capstone to the speech, tying together Stewart’s wit, wisdom, and his passion for badgering our elected officials into finally doing the right thing.
Davidson then closed out by saying he appreciated Stewart “as much as whoever this f*cking Mark Twain guy is.”