‘The Daily Show’ Is In “Game Shape” To Deal With Political Carnage – Contenders TV: Documentary, Unscripted & Variety
The rhythm of late-night television changed back in 2017 when Donald Trump became President, forcing all of the talk shows to prepare for the dreaded 4 p.m. rewrite.
So, when Trump was reelected for a second term, it’s a challenge that all of the late-night shows know how to face.
The team behind The Daily Show says they’re already in “game shape” to handle it.
Desi Lydic, one of the show’s hosts alongside Jon Stewart, Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper and Michael Kosta, was behind the desk earlier this month during “tariff week,” which saw the news change almost hourly. How do you handle a situation like that?
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“Oh my god, with a lot of help from a lot of staff members and some opiates,” Lydic joked during Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary, Unscripted & Variety event. “[That] was a bit of a roller-coaster news week. Before I go into the hosting week, I’m watching the Sunday morning shows, I’m reading stories, and I’m [working out] what themes I might want to talk about. Then it was obvious it was going to be tariff week. Of course, we couldn’t predict exactly how that was going to go and on Tuesday we had an entire show written that went through basically a page-one rewrite at 4 p.m. We were immediately thrust back into, ‘Oh, this is what Trump’s America looks like’.”
Showrunner Jen Flanz added that the team is “constantly pivoting.” “Is it ideal? We’d like a little more time, sure, but this one felt like a live show,” she said. “We wrote it and didn’t have that much time to belabor each of the jokes. The whole tariff story changed at 4 p.m.. It’s the chaos of the administration, and it keeps us on our toes. We’re in game shape.”
Lydic paid tribute to Zhubin Parang, co-executive producer and writer, calling him an “absolute machine.”
“Honestly, a lot of the credit goes to Donald Trump himself, because, as much as his erratic decision-making throws our show to chaos, it also throws his guys into chaos too. They come out stammering, saying four to five different things at once, and that, ironically, gives us the material that we need to replace the material that he ruined for us. Trump giveth as he takes it away,” Parang added.
To handle it, Parang said the digital team is gathering clips throughout the day, the studio team is always looking for themes, and there are five different departments that have material ready to go.
“We try and prepare as much as you can and anticipate,” added Flanz. “Yesterday, [Trump] was talking about shower heads and water again and we have a running file of all the times he’s said that and we were able to really quickly throw together this amazing montage.”
She joked that the show has now started a file on Trump talking about groceries.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won 10 consecutive late-night Emmys between 2003 and 2012, losing out to Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report for a couple of years before taking back the crown in 2015. After losing to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for seven straight years, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah won in 2023 after the South African comedian left the show, and again last year following Jon Stewart’s return.
The show is coming up to 30 years on the air and, despite the noise around late-night, Flanz is confident it will continue strongly.
“I read the articles. I’ve heard it all, but when I’m out with friends and family, I hear when the streets are talking, when just normal people that don’t work in television are talking to me, they all watch the show and are reciting jokes. It’s relevant and people use it as an outlet. I think it’s great that there’s other platforms, like the streamers and social media, to put out other content, but I think that late-night will always have a voice. It’s important to have a central area that people can go to laugh.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
