Jon Stewart invents Tucker Carlson narrative, insults Polish people, and links urinal-caked subways to freedom in 15-minute marathon

Jon Stewart used to be one of my favorite comedians. I quit watching Comedy Central when he left The Daily Show. When he returned, I was looking forward to getting good comedy with an intellectual edge. Then I saw his commentary on Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin.¹ He highlighted the segment regarding Putin’s oratory on Poland and Hitler during WWII. That’s when Stewart let ideology get in the way of comedy and intellectual honesty.

All posts I write are my opinions based on available information and my logical conclusions. This one is an opinion post which also includes my experience as a person of Polish descent. My grandparents came to the United States from Eastern Europe when they were young. After arriving in the United States, my grandparents lived the remainder of their lives in a small Polish/Czech community. Most of their lives they lived and worked on their farms which was their livelihood.

Stewart’s Comedy Central Video

As of April 10, 2024, the Jon Stewart 15 minute 11 second video on the Carlson/Putin interview has 9,101,979 views, and 289,000 “thumbs up” with no “thumbs down.” The quotations below are from the video transcript.² Please Note: I have not edited Stewart’s statements to eliminate language some people may find offensive. I strive for accuracy, not censorship. Please reference the video for accuracy of my statements. The video date is February 19, 2024. It is available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY

As of April 10, 2024, Tucker Carlson’s 2 hour 7 minute and 18 second Putin Interview video has 19,523,542 views, and 971,000 “thumbs up” with no “thumbs down.” The quotations below are from the video transcript.³ Please reference the video for accuracy of my statements. The interview date is February 6, 2024. The video date is February 8, 2024. It is available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo.

This is a summary of the first 6 minutes and 37 seconds of the Jon Stewart Daily Show video:

• Stewart talks about Democrats and Republicans criticizing his previous show. (2:20)
• Stewart leads into his next segment with needing “mentorship” on how to “study the particulars of unquestioning propaganda.” He introduces five video clips of Tucker Carlson in Russia. The sequence follows:
  • Five segments, totaling 39 seconds of Tucker Carlson in Russia introducing his interview with Vladimir Putin, including one clip of Carlson sitting in a chair during the interview.
  • The fourth segment, 6 seconds in length, consisted of 2 clips edited together.
  • During the fifth segment, 14 seconds in length, there is no audio accompanying the video of Carlson seated in a chair, but Stewart makes the following comment over the segment. “When you’re sitting there interviewing Putin and you don’t plan to challenge his utter bullshit, but you don’t want to really be that obvious, what do you do with your face?”
  • Stewart says Carlson’s facial expression are “a mixture of what appears to be shame, arousal, and I’m going to say irregularity. For instance, like you’re constipated while jerking off to a Sears catalog.”
• Stewart introduces a sixth video clip of Carlson. “But what if Putin starts saying shit like World War II was Poland’s fault because they forced Hitler to invade them. I mean, what do you do with something like that? That’s got to be hard.”
  • Stewart then plays the 14 second clip. An interpreter translates Putin’s words into English. Carlson responds with two words.
     Putin: “After World War I, this territory was transferred to Poland and instead of Danzig a city of Gdańsk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused.”
    Carlson: “Of course.”
  • After the clip Stewart remarks: ‘Of course, you know, that’s so hard to do when your face says what the what the [bleep] and your mouth says, “of course.” It’s so hard to– how do you– all right. How do you do that?’
• Stewart then repeats some well-known Polish jokes in reference to Poland starting WWII.
  • “By the way, Poland started World War II, why would a country whose navy has submarines with screen doors want to instigate a war? Quick history lesson. Years ago, for reasons nobody is really sure of, a stereotype emerged that Polish people were inept in various ways, including, obviously, submarine manufacturing and even something as simple as the changing of a light bulb.”
• Stewart makes a comment regarding the intelligence of “Polish people.”
  • “Now, we know that Polish people are as smart as anyone and certainly did not deserve to be invaded by the Germans, who, of course, accomplished that by marching in backwards so the Poles thought they were leaving.”

Observations

The above summary is of the first 6 minutes and 37 seconds of Stewart’s show. The six video segments of Carlson’s interview with Putin total 53 seconds. This includes the 14 second clip in which Stewart described Carlson’s facial expression rather than playing the accompanying audio. Tucker Carlson’s video interview with Putin is 2 hours, 7 minutes, and 18 seconds in length. The six video clips Stewart highlighted are 0.7% of the total Carlson/Putin interview video.

Ethnic Humor

Many people have used ethnic humor in the U.S., but few uses have been as pervasive, ubiquitous, and long-lasting as the “Polack jokes.” Attempts to deny or minimize that fact is disingenuous and shows a clear rationalization of bias and discrimination. The jokes are based on the stereotype of “dumb polacks.” I grew up during the 1950s and heard the stereotype often as a child.

Jon Stewart, whose name at birth is Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz,⁴ seems to have firsthand experience with stereotypes. According to an interview in the February 11, 2002, New Yorker, Stewart said, “I didn’t grow up in Warsaw, but it’s not like it wasn’t duly noted by my peers that that’s who I was—there were some minor slurs.”⁵ Stewart referenced shortening his name during his second appearance at a comedy club due to the host’s hesitation at trying to pronounce his name during his first appearance. He also mentioned “slight leftover resentment at the taunting. You don’t want a tauntable [sic] handle in show business.”⁶

I believe negative stereotypes damage children’s self-esteem, motivation, and individuality. If a person has never been in a stereotyped segment of the population, it is hard to understand the effects of negative stereotypes. Knowing Jon Stewart’s early experience with Polish and Jewish stereotypes made me question why he launched into a barrage of ethnic humor targeting Poles. Failing to mention his early experience with stereotypes and being associated with Poles were noteworthy omissions. Why he conducted the segment in that manner only he can answer.

The rehashing of worn-out Polish jokes was gratuitous. I found it insulting and a disservice to children who continue to live with the stereotype. Why not just let the stereotype die like we have done with other stereotypes in our modern, diverse, inclusive, enlightened U.S. American society? Why is that, Mr. Stewart?

“Polish people are as smart as anyone,” and the Polish Experience

Stewart’s statement that “we know that Polish people are as smart as anyone” was shameful. Replace “Polish” with Haitian, Mexican, Iraqi, Dominican, Japanese, Kenyan, or some other nationalities and ask yourself if it is acceptable. Stewart’s left-handed compliment fits his style. The audience’s laughter confirmed groupthink was alive and well that night. Great night for polack bashing yet being understanding and sympathetic.

Instead of promoting Polish jokes, Stewart could have mentioned the Polish experience during WWII. He could have made fun of the fact that:

“The Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior. Following the military defeat of Poland by Germany in September 1939, the Germans launched a campaign of terror intended to destroy the Polish nation and culture and to reduce the Poles to a leaderless population of peasants and workers laboring for German masters.”⁷

Perhaps Stewart could have found entertainment value in:

“Calculating the numbers of individuals who were killed as the result of Nazi policies is a difficult task. It is estimated that the Germans killed between 1.8 and 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians during World War II. In addition, the Germans murdered at least 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland.”⁸

Stewart and his audience may have found amusement in how easy it was to enslave the Polish people:

“It was a beautiful afternoon the day we left Krakow. Our homeland, abused by the occupation said goodbye to us with a sunny day. The monotonous clatter of the train wheels painfully reminded us that it was taking us away as slaves.”⁹
– Maria Hosajowa, a former Polish forced laborer

Perhaps Stewart’s audience was already familiar with those fun-filled facts, but they never heard any of the Polish jokes he managed to dredge up.

Tucker Carlson’s exchange with Putin from the Tucker Carlson Network (TCN)

I had not watched Carlson’s interview with Putin prior to seeing Jon Stewart’s show. I thought two hours was too long to spend on the video, and I believe Putin is a dictator, a tyrant, and conducts political persecutions. I was wrong about two hours being too long to spend on the video, but I still hold the same convictions about Putin after seeing the interview.

At 13:22 into the TCN video, the exchange that Stewart highlighted on his show occurred. An interpreter provided the English translation of Putin’s statements:

Putin: After World War I, this territory was transferred to Poland and instead of Danzig a city of Gdańsk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused.
Carlson: Of course.

Again, I did not watch any of the interview prior to watching the Jon Stewart video, but Stewart’s inference seemed to be Carlson was verbally agreeing with Putin that Poland started WWII over disputed territory.

The Reality

I watched the entire 2 hour 7 minute interview on the Tucker Carlson Network. After watching the segment Stewart had referenced, it was obvious. Tucker Carlson cut Putin off when he stated, “After World War I this territory was transferred to Poland and instead of Danzig a city of Gdańsk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused.” At that point Carlson blurted out, “Of course,” indicating that of course Poland refused to yield to Hitler’s demands to give up the territory.

The irony is Stewart’s comments after playing the clip confirmed Carlson was not sublimating his thoughts with verbal agreement as Stewart suggested.

Stewart: ‘Of course, you know, that’s so hard to do when your face says what the what the [bleep] and your mouth says, “of course.” It’s so hard to– how do you– all right. How do you do that?’

Did Stewart once consider Carlson’s facial expression and words were in sync by taking the totality of the response at face value instead of creating a witless narrative? Carlson blurted out “of course” in Putin’s face. His facial expression and words demonstrated a visceral response in favor of Poland’s reaction to a psychotic tyrant’s demands. In my opinion, not only was it a misrepresentation for Stewart to suggest otherwise, but it was also intellectually insulting.

My first degree is in Sociology. I worked as a casework counselor in many tense situations for four years prior to pursuing my second degree. I know what a visceral response looks like. That was it.

Stewart’s degree is in psychology. He has a right to his opinion and interpretation of Carlson’s response. How did he determine Carlson misrepresented his thoughts? Was it because Carlson’s tone was subdued rather than bombastic, which is Stewart’s style? Even Stewart said, “How do you do that?” The simple explanation is Carlson did not “do that.”

Stewart’s Logic Lesson

Stewart also gave us a logic lesson. First, he derided Carlson’s reporting on a grocery shopping excursion and his awe of a clean Russian subway system. Then Stewart equated dirty, crime infested subways with freedom. After playing an eleven second CBS Mornings clip regarding the jailing of many of Alexei Navalny’s followers, Stewart stated:

“Right, because the difference between our urinal-caked chaotic subways and your candelabra’d beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom.”

Jailing supporters of a political opponent is not democracy in any society. Linking “urinal-caked, chaotic subways” to “freedom” requires a suspension of disbelief most fiction novel writers would not hazard.

Stewart may want to tell the families of this year’s three subway murder victims how their murders are “the literal price of freedom.” Perhaps he can rationalize how the “price of freedom” includes someone kicking another person in the back and onto the subway tracks. Also, does “the literal price of freedom” require the introduction of “750 National Guard members and 250 MTA officers and state police in subway stations, in response to the increase in violent crime in the New York City subway system in recent months, including three killings”?¹⁰

 Some people may consider the militarization of a subway system akin to martial law regardless of how necessary it may be. Any form of military action and heightened police intervention limits “freedom” by design. Fear of being a victim of subway system crime will stop some people from using the subway, which restricts their freedom. Stewart should avoid employing logic. It doesn’t seem to be his strong point. Clean, orderly subways and freedom are not mutually exclusive.

Jon Stewart’s Journalism

It appears Carlson dismayed Stewart by not confronting Putin over jailing Alexei Navalny’s supporters. Carlson’s focus was on extracting information on the Russia/Ukraine war and the threat of a nuclear war. These are critical issues in the United States and the world. The role of a journalist is to extract information from the interviewee. We, the reading, listening, or viewing public, then have the “freedom” to believe what we think is the truth.

At 1:51:06 into the interview, Carlson did deviate from his role as a journalist to address a human rights issue.

Carlson: I just got to ask you one last question, and that’s about someone who’s very famous in the United States, probably not here, Evan Gershkovich who’s the Wall Street Journal reporter. He’s 32, um and he’s been in prison for almost a year, uh this is a huge story in the United States, and I just want to ask you directly without getting into the tales of it or your version of what happened, if as a sign of your decency, you would be willing to release him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.

If you do not care to listen to any other part of the interview, listen to that segment in order to assess Carlson’s stand on human rights issues. It was a bold move. You can find background on the Gershkovich story on The Wall Street Journal website.¹¹

Earlier in the interview, at 1:11:33 into the video, Carlson shifted from his original line of questioning to another topic. Putin’s response was interesting.

Carlson: Who blew up Nord stream?
Putin: You for sure.
Carlson: I was busy that day, and do you have, do uh, I did not blow up Nord Stream, uh thank you.
Putin: Though you personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.
Carlson:  Do you have evidence that NATO or CIA did it?

Perhaps Mr. Stewart will go to Russia and confront Putin regarding Navalny’s death on February 16, 2024, which is ten days after Carlson interviewed Putin on February 6, 2024. Stewart has the money, backing, and political resources available to do so. We, the public, will then have two journalistic styles we will be able to evaluate. The interview may go something like this:

Stewart: Who is responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death?
Putin: You for sure. We will be arresting you before you leave the Kremlin today.
End of interview.

Conclusion

When I was a child growing up during the 1950s, I was ashamed of being Polish because of the stereotype. I quit speaking the little Polish I knew with my grandparents and distanced myself from my heritage. Now, I’m much older and understand the meaning of negative stereotypes and bigotry based on nationality.

I am not one of those people of Polish descent who shuffle their feet and say it’s okay to promote Polish stereotypes through jokes. Those same inane, worn-out jokes may subconsciously affect the current and future generations of children with Polish surnames. Kudos to you Jon Stewart for using your national platform to keep it alive and well. I understand people changing their names if they know it hints of a negative stereotype that presents social and professional barriers. Maybe those children should change their “tauntable handle,” and society can continue amusing itself with adolescent mockery based on nationality. Perhaps the desire for bigotry is so integral to our society, we have to consolidate all of it into the few remaining socially acceptable scapegoats.

Some of my uncles served in the U.S. military and were deployed in Europe during WWII. Their stories are personal but serve as a testament to the hundreds of thousands of good men and women who fought Hitler and the Nazis under difficult circumstances. There are many ways to remember that war. One is that it had similarities to the U.S. Civil War because it freed millions of people from slavery and extermination. Those people were Jewish and Polish. The irony is that “the Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior,” and the Polish people who came to the United States faced a similar albeit veiled version of the same attitude when they arrived.

This is a story of sanctioned discriminatory practices masquerading as comedy. It is about fading intellectual honesty and the death of integrity. Stewart’s segment on Carlson began with Stewart stating that Carlson lied about being a journalist. That is his opinion and perhaps the opinion of many of the 11 million Comedy Central subscribers. They have a right to that opinion. Here’s my opinion. Jon Stewart is neither a journalist nor a candid commentator, and he no longer is a comedian. That’s sad for me to say because I used to enjoy his humor.

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1. “The Daily Show,” “Jon Stewart on Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview & Trip to Russia,” YouTube video, February 19, 2024,
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM2h3KnWAWY. ↩︎
2. Ibid ↩︎
3. “Tucker Carlson Network,” “Exclusive: Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin,” YouTube video, February 6, 2024, accessed April 9, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo. ↩︎
4. Tad Friend, “Is It Funny Yet?,” New Yorker, February 11, 2002, accessed April 9, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/02/11/is-it-funny-yet. ↩︎
5. Ibid ↩︎
6. Ibid ↩︎
7. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed on April 10, 2024 https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/polish-victims ↩︎
8. Ibid ↩︎
9. “The Experience of Eastern European Forced Laborers in Germany,” The National WWII Museum, March 21, 2022, accessed April 10, 2024, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/eastern-european-forced-laborers-germany. ↩︎
10. Molly Bohannon, “NYC’s Subway Violence: Here’s What Caused A New National Guard Crackdown,” Forbes, March 6, 2024, accessed April 10, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/03/06/nycs-subway-violence-heres-what-caused-a-new-national-guard-crackdown/?sh=721b09597eca. ↩︎
11. The Wall Street Journal, “Evan Gershkovich,” The Wall Street Journal, URL: https://www.wsj.com/news/author/evan-gershkovich (accessed April 15, 2024). ↩︎