Jon Stewart returning to 'The Daily Show' through 2024 election as once-a-week host

Jon Stewart is returning to "The Daily Show" through the 2024 election as a once-a-week host.

Comedy Central on Wednesday said Stewart will host the socio-politically oriented program each Monday beginning Feb. 12, the Associated Press reported, adding that a rotating crew of hosts will helm the show on other days of the week.

NBC News, noting that "The Daily Show" typically airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. EST, said Monday is "widely believed to be its most-watched day."

“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season,” Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, said in a statement, according to the AP. “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”

Stewart hosted "The Daily Show" for 16 years beginning in 1999, the outlet noted, adding that he received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2022.

More from the AP:

Over the years, “The Daily Show” — first hosted by Craig Kilborn, then Stewart and Trevor Noah — has skewered the left and right by making the media a character and playing it absolutely straight, no matter how ridiculous.The show, which won an Emmy Award this month for best talk series, has not had a permanent host since Noah left last year. Current correspondents include Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, Ronny Chieng and Jordan Klepper.

Stewart had been hosting "The Problem with Jon Stewart" for Apple TV+, but it was announced in October that the show was being canceled. Stewart wanted full creative control over the show's content, but Apple executives were allegedly concerned about topics Stewart planned to cover in season three — such as China, artificial intelligence, and Israel. There were also concerns regarding how Stewart would approach the 2024 presidential election, according to the New York Times.

While the AP said a spokesperson didn't immediately respond to questions regarding who will host “The Daily Show” after the November election, Stewart will serve as an executive producer through 2025 and assist in crafting the future look and feel of "The Daily Show."

Anything else?

Following his departure from "The Daily Show," Stewart still managed to make headlines.

His biggest splash arguably came in June 2021 when he outraged progressives after a viral rant on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" saying that the coronavirus pandemic originated from a laboratory leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

"Oh my God! There's a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know, who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab! That's just a little too weird!" Stewart said.

Jon Stewart On Vaccine Science And The Wuhan Lab Theoryyoutu.be

In October 2021, Stewart dismissed the idea that former President Donald Trump is "some incredible supervillain" who could totally upend American democracy.

Early in 2022, Stewart twice defended Joe Rogan amid a flurry of left-wing calls for the podcaster's cancellation due to alleged spreading of COVID-19 misinformation. Stewart added that the mainstream media had gotten plenty wrong about a variety of subjects and wondered who gets to decide what is misinformation.

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