Jon Stewart took a dig at Tucker Carlson, calling the former Fox star “damn” over his softball interview with “brutal and ruthless” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The conservative commentator faced intense backlash over his cozy meeting with the dictator, which intensified after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found dead on Friday.
It was revealed on Tuesday that Carlson's interview in Moscow took place on the day Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested on treason charges for donating $50 to a Ukrainian charity.
On Monday night, the Daily Show host pulled no punches when he accused Carlson of “surrendering to power.”
“I know I’ve said this before, but you’re so great,” Stewart said.
“Disguise your deception and surrender to power as noble and moral and based on freedom.”
Jon Stewart reignited his decades-old feud with former Fox host Tucker Carlson on The Daily Show Monday night on Comedy Central
The right-wing commentator was the first Western journalist to interview Vladimir Putin since Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago
Carlson has faced increasing backlash since Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's death in custody on Friday
Carlson has been on the back foot since agreeing to Putin's first interview with a Western media figure since the invasion in February 2022.
He described Navalny's suspicious death in an Arctic penal colony as “barbaric and terrible,” adding that “no decent person would defend him.”
But former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson branded him a “sycophantic stooge” because he gave Putin an easy platform and lacked rigorous questioning.
Alone on
Originally broadcast on his web channel Tucker Carlson Network, he began by explaining his reasons for doing the interview.
“First of all, because it's our job, we're in journalism,” Carlson said, “it's our duty to inform people.”
“Step one: lie about what your job is,” Stewart noted while playing the clip.
“Step two: lie about what your duty is.”
Tucker's interview with Putin took place in Moscow on Tuesday, February 6, and was broadcast two days later
In the interview, Putin controlled the narrative and made a series of claims about his invasion of Ukraine. Carlson was criticized as a “sycophantic stooge” by world leaders during the chat
Vladimir Putin during his sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson
The video sparked much ridicule online as many pointed out the discrepancy between the average wage in Russia – which is the equivalent of $9,072 – or 6.5 times less than the average US salary of $59,428
The interview in Moscow took place on the day Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested for donating $50 to a Ukrainian charity
She has since appeared in court blindfolded as she was charged with treason
“Americans have the right to know as much as possible about the ways in which they are implicated,” Carlson continued, “freedom of speech is our birthright.”
“High praise, sensei, that was deep,” Stewart shot back, before summing up: “Disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based on freedom.”
Stewart hosted the Comedy Central show between 1999 and 2016 and returned earlier this month to replace Trevor Noah.
The liberal comedian and the right-wing broadcaster have waged a decades-long feud since Stewart also called him a “d***” on an infamous episode of Carlson's Crossfire show in 2004.
Stewart attacked his bow-tied host, accusing him of “hurting America through partisan hacking.”
“You're doing theater where you should be doing debates, which would be great,” he added.
“What you are doing is not honest.”
On Monday's show, he mocked Carlson's praise of Russian public spaces as “more beautiful than anything else in our country.”
Carlson was impressed by a shopping cart that requires a coin to be inserted as a deposit, which is refunded when the cart is returned.
“So it's free, but there's an incentive to give it back and not just take it to your homeless camp,” he told his viewers.
“I didn’t realize that America’s homeless problem was caused by easy access to shopping carts,” Stewart replied.
Carlson praised Moscow's low food prices and the quality of its freshly baked bread.
“Going into a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live will radicalize you,” he promised.
Carlson did not question Putin's bizarre claim that Poland pressured Nazi Germany into starting World War II by not handing over its city of Danzig.
And he made no mention of Navalny, who was poisoned by Russian agents before being sentenced to 19 years in prison and whose body is currently being held for chemical analysis.
But it was Carlson's praise of the strictly regimented Russian society that provoked Stewart's fiercest ridicule.
Here's the reality: You know all this because you're not as stupid as your face would have us believe,” he chided.
“If your superiors had allowed it, you might have seen that there is a hidden fee for your cheap food and order on the streets – ask Aleksei Navalny or one of his supporters.”
“The difference between our urinal-strewn subways and your beautiful candelabra-strewn subways is the literal price of freedom,” he claimed.
Stewart famously clashed with Carlson in a 2004 episode of CNN's “Crossfire,” in which the outspoken Democrat criticized Carlson for “making a fuss when you should be debating.”
“The old civilizational struggle was communism versus capitalism, that is what has driven the world since World War II.”
“Russia was the enemy then, but now they think the fight is awake versus unawake and Putin is an ally on the right in this fight.”
“He is her friend.” Unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator.
“Freedom is beautiful,” he added, “But have you seen Russia’s shopping cart?”