Jon Stewart Returns to ‘The Daily Show’ for 2024 Election Season

Mark Twain Prize recipient Jon Stewart (C) is joined by his wife Tracey Stewart (R), and son Nate Stewart (L) after being introduced at the start of the 23rd annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on April 24, 2022. Kevin Wolf/AP Photo

A familiar face is returning to “The Daily Show” next month, Comedy Central announced on Wednesday.

Comedian Jon Stewart will be back behind the desk as the host and executive producer on Monday nights starting Feb. 12 through the 2024 election cycle. A rotating lineup of show regulars will host the remaining weeknights.

Mr. Stewart ruled the perch of the talk TV show for 16 years until stepping down in 2015.

“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. “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.”

Since its debut in 1996, “The Daily Show”—first hosted by Craig Kilborn, then Mr. 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 earlier this month for Best Talk Series, has not had a permanent host since Mr. Noah’s departure in September 2022. The show’s current correspondents are Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, Ronny Chieng, and Jordan Klepper.

Mr. Stewart didn’t leave the show in anger and has been known to speak fondly of his time on the show.

“When you lose that structure, you’re untethered from the thing that prevents the bad mind from doing its corrupt best,” he said on the Strike Force Five podcast during the Hollywood strikes last year. “It goes south and dark really fast.”

“It’s not like I thought the show wasn’t working anymore or that I didn’t know how to do it. It was more, ‘Yup, it’s working. But I’m not getting the same satisfaction,’” he told the Guardian in 2015.

The show’s long-term legacy as a talent incubator is sterling. It has been a launching pad for the likes of John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Olivia Munn, Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Aasif Mandvi.

Former correspondents Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert are among those who got massive boosts from the show. 

Mr. Carell went on to enjoy an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated acting career in “The Office” on TV and films like “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” and “Foxcatcher.” Mr. Colbert led the spinoff Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report” from 2005 to 2014. Now, he hosts CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

In 2022, Mr. Stewart received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

“For more than three decades, Jon Stewart has brightened our lives and challenged our minds as he delivers current events and social satire with his trademark wit and wisdom,” said Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter in a statement in 2022.

More recently, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” which debuted in 2021, was canceled on the Apple TV+ streaming service. The TV series took on topics such as climate change, racism, gun control, and mass incarceration, rubbing some critics the wrong way.

“The host spends some time searching for his old rhythm, the soft-loud-soft approach, in which he rockets from calm to horror to a person crouched in a corner croaking ‘help,’” the Los Angeles Times said in a review. 

The show’s abrupt end was reportedly triggered by clashes between Mr. Stewart and Apple over topics related to China and artificial intelligence.

Comedy Central did not immediately respond to an inquiry for more information.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.