Information

As a response to Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from ABC, Jon Stewart‘s special appearance on “The Daily Show” was more inferred than explicit. The celebrated host typically only sits behind the desk on Mondays, but made an exception Thursday night to lead the full team in a mock capitulation to Donald Trump.

On a set freshly adorned in the commander-in-chief’s favorite color and sporting a MAGA red tie, the “patriotically appropriate host” welcomed viewers with (what I imagine is only) slightly exaggerated anxiety. “Welcome to ‘The Daily Show’ on — I’m going to guess — Monday,” Stewart said. “We have another fun, hilarious… administration-compliant show.”

From there, Stewart moved forward with a standard lead story about the president’s visit to the U.K. that was framed by constant kowtowing to the “perfectly-tinted Trump.” Pausing from time to time to scold his audience for laughing at the wrong time and even slapping himself in the head for mistakenly pronouncing Armenia as Albania, Stewart’s extreme submissiveness worked well to highlight how he really felt about recent events and to acknowledge the very real fears of his audience.

If Trump wants to be a dictator, then Stewart will treat him like one — now, before it’s too late.

But for those who wanted the long-heralded satirist to speak more directly about Kimmel’s forced removal from late-night, Stewart got into it around the 10-minute mark via a clip of a British reporter asking Trump if free speech is “more under attack in Britain or America.” In mock fury, Stewart than recapped what the reporter was referring to — from the FCC “threatening” affiliates to those affiliates threatening Disney with an “ultimatum” of their own — all while “defending” Trump’s interpretation of the First Amendment.

 “I don’” know who this Johnny Drimmel Live ABC character is,” Stewart said. “But the point is: Our great administration has laid out very clear rules about free speech. Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitarian intimidation — principle-less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance.”

“Not me, though,” he joked. “I think it’s great.”

After bringing on “The Daily Show’s” full team of correspondents for a literal song-and-dance (kudos to Jordan Klepper for hitting those high notes), Stewart then spent the bulk of the episode interviewing Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist and author of the book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator.” Ressa was adamant in citing the similarities between the fall of democracy under Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, her home country, and what she sees happening here in America. Both she and Stewart marveled at the speed at which each of their recent leaders collapsed the institutions meant to maintain a balance of power, including a legislative body that bent the knee and a judiciary that was under attack.

Notably, Ressa issued the same call to action twice, almost unprompted. “This is happening,” she said early in the interview. “If you do not reclaim your rights, if you don’t stand up, it’s going to be significantly harder to claw them back.”

Later, she described Americans as acting like “deer in headlights,” adding, “If you don’t move and protect the rights you have, you lose them. And it’s so much harder to reclaim them.”

While he didn’t say so himself, this was Stewart’s central message: Now is the time to act. Now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to establish what free speech really means, before it’s decided for us.

With Kimmel’s fate still hanging in the balance, it’s hard to think of a better stance to take. Despite what Trump has said, Kimmel has not been fired, and as of publishing this story, ABC has not provided an update on his suspension. Many late-night comedians have come to his defense, as they should, in addition to politicians and other prominent figures in entertainment. (Shout-out to Damon Lindelof for being among the first to commit to a Disney boycott if Kimmel’s suspension isn’t lifted, as well as all the protesters marching outside the Burbank lot.)

Ressa also said there were two ways she would describe our current moment: an information apocalypse or an information armageddon. And, as Stewart stressed she’s usually an optimistic person, she said she prefers the term armageddon “because I’m optimistic. Apocalypse is done, but armageddon is the battle. This is the battle.”

Even if he didn’t make a candid plea or straightforward statement, Stewart used his platform to defend Kimmel while urging everyone to keep fighting (“peacefully,” as he made sure to add). For “The Daily Show,” the timing, the presentation, and the format all stood out. Now, we all need to stand up.

Watch the first half of Thursday’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” below.