Fox News CEO Roger Ailes is bidding farewell to Comedy Central “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart with a few parting shots.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Ailes questioned what impact Stewart, a hero to many Democrats, had on the national dialogue.
“He’s been after us for years,” Ailes said, referring to Stewart’s regular criticism of Fox News’s conservative commentators. “Occasionally we pay attention. We think he’s funny. We never took it seriously and he never made a dent in us.”
Stewart’s tenure as “Daily Show” host ends Thursday. He will be replaced by Trevor Noah. On his second to last show on Wednesday, Stewart joked about his own influence. “The world is demonstrably worse than when I started,” he said. “Have I caused this? Have my efforts all been for naught?”
“As [Stewart] faces the end of his career,” Ailes said in his interview with Hollywood Reporter, “he’s beginning to wonder: ‘Is this as popular as I’m ever going to get? Is this as much power as I’ll ever have? The one person I could never get rid of was Roger Ailes. I tried. I did everything I could.’ This was all a plea to his lefty friends. I think he’s disappointed that he didn’t accomplish that goal, and we, of course, supplied him with half of his comedy. It’s just a matter of disappointment.”
