For ABC “The View” host Rosie O’Donnell, “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart, who prepares to step down as the satirical news program’s leader after nearly two decades, is an original.
“He’s a genius, and there’s no one who can do it like he does it. He is the show, right?” O’Donnell asked her fellow co-hosts on Tuesday. “He’s so smart. Sometimes, I watch that show, and I have to go, ‘Pause. Google.’ He’ll be missed.”
During a taping of the Comedy Central show, Stewart announced his planned departure later this year with no replacement named yet. The exit comes on the heels of Stephen Colbert also leaving the network as host of “The Colbert Report” to replace David Letterman on “The Late Show.”
Rosie Perez mentioned Colbert as one of the careers Stewart helped launch.
“The main thing I appreciate about Jon Stewart is that he never held back his opinion, his point of view, he did it with compassion and humor and intelligence,” Perez said. “When the Eric Garner catastrophe happened, he removed all humor from that topic and gave his straight opinion, and you felt his heart.”
Also during the hot topics discussion, the co-hosts circled back to Brian Williams who was suspended for six months without pay on Tuesday after his false account of being struck by enemy rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) while in a helicopter during the initial 2003 Iraq invasion, as TheWrap previously reported.
Moderator Whoopi Goldberg wondered if Williams can come back.
“Can Brian Williams come back and do what he wants?” she asked. “Anthony Weiner, you sent pictures of your penis to you, and they still welcomed him back. The fact that people came out and voted.”
Nicolle Wallace added, “Brian Williams was offering opinions and telling his stories, and that’s where he got in so much trouble.”
O’Donnell, who originally called Williams’ misstep a “Lance Armstrong lie,” chimed in with a softer tone.
“There’s so much blur between news and entertainment,” she said. “There’s nowhere that people know where they’re getting straight facts.”
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