Jon Stewart rejects suggestion that he’d run for president in 2024: ‘No thank you’

A viral op-ed published last week promoted a theory that the former Daily Show host could have a good shot at the 2024 Democratic ticket if Joe Biden ducks out

No, Jon Stewart won’t be running for president in 2024.

Or at least that’s what he seemed to suggest over the weekend when he tweeted out “Ummm…No thank you” on the heels of an op-ed published by Politico made the pitch that the former Daily Show host make a bid for the highest political office in the US went viral.

“Joe Biden should run for president in 2024. But if he decides against it for whatever reason, and the Democrats want a serious shot at retaining the White House, Jon Stewart should run on the Democratic ticket instead,” wrote Juleanna Glover, the CEO of Ridgely|Walsh, a DC-based public affairs advisory firm who has worked with Republican candidates like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani.

In the piece, Ms Glover argued that the 2024 presidential race is primed to be a “carnival”, particularly so after former US president Donald Trump “blew up the whole idea of ‘normal’” more than seven years ago when he kicked off his campaign for the 2016 election.

Ms Glover goes on to point out how fellow comedians Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson and Steven Colbert all joked about the podcaster running in 2024 when they delivered their tributes to him at the Mark Twain Awards show in April. At that show, Mr Stewart took home the Twain Prize for American Humor.

“That is why he is the perfect person to publicly worry about the future of our democracy,” began Colbert. “Why so many people think he should run for president. And I get it. He’s got a lot in common with Bill Clinton. A keen intelligence. The Veganism. Rapid Aging.” Davidson quipped that he was “really could be president tomorrow, but is too smart to do so.”

The notion of Stewart running also came up during an interview on The New York Times podcast Sway. Host Kara Swisher asked the comedian-turned-movie director whether he felt obligated to run for president.

“Oh, god. How do you not? When you see the sh**heads that are,” he began, and then devolved into cracking a joke about how it felt comparable to seizing the wheel from a drunk driver.

During that interview, however, he ultimately seemed to land on the side that he struck out with on Twitter over the weekend, stating: “I, listen, I also think there’s a lot that goes around that that has nothing to do with passion or care about issues or wanting to help people, that has to do with fundraising and the way the game is played and the lack of perspective on it.”

“And sometimes I feel like, well, I can be more effective on the outside than on the inside.”

When Stewart joined Twitter in 2021, he actually even joked about how his entry into the online platform, which had previously helped launch Mr Trump’s successful bid for president and became his go-to space for firing off near-daily gripes with the world until he was banned by the tech giant following the Jan 6 Capitol riot, could presage his own bid for presidency.

“So...if I do really well on here I get to be President, yes?” he tweeted on 29 January 2021, just weeks after the violent insurrection for which a special House committee has been conducting a year-long investigation into Mr Trump’s role in.