Jon Stewart is firing back at conservative political commentator Andrew Sullivan’s claims that he was “ambushed” by the comedian on Apple TV+’s “The Problem with Jon Stewart” last week.
In a lengthy Substack post on Friday, Sullivan accused Stewart and the other guests on the show of “unprofessionally” making him appear racist during their conversation, which he chalked up to them pushing “woke” narratives.
However, Stewart wasn’t having it. He swiftly issued a response on Twitter, writing: “Nonsense @sullydish. Our booker handled this last minute ask impeccably. Mr Sullivan was told, texted and emailed a detailed account of who was on the program, the content and intent of the discussion.”
“She patiently handled his high maintenance shenanigans and gave him every opportunity to excuse himself,” he wrote in a follow up tweet. “This man wasn’t ambushed. Any damage incurred was self inflicted.”
In his last tweet, Stewart wrote: “And can we stop with the lazy ‘woke’ s– anytime someone disagrees with a conservative. F— man.”
Sullivan appeared on the show alongside two other guests, which you can watch here. In his Substack post, he said that the show’s booker had initially promised he would be the only guest during his segment. According to the former The New Republic editor, it wasn’t until he was preparing to dial in for his remote appearance that there were two other people in the studio with Stewart.
He wrote that the booking team gave him the option to back out at the last minute, but “I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch, reassured myself that Stewart was a pro, and said I’d go ahead.” During the segment, Sullivan claims both Stewart and the guests “unprofessionally” backed him into appearing racist.
“This is the poisonous heart of CRT: that white people, by virtue of merely existing, are all morally problematic and always will be,” Sullivan wrote. “Even if all the systems have been repealed. Even if you’d never racially discriminate yourself. Even if you spent your life fighting racism. That is why Bond called the Abolitionist movement indistinguishable in terms of its racism from the KKK! Why? Because whites are only ever whites.”