Daily Show Shocker: Jon Stewart Returning As Host — Find Out When!

Jon Stewart is returning to Comedy Central's World News Headquarters, reclaiming his former gig as host of The Daily Show.

Stewart will host one night per week — Mondays, beginning Feb. 12 — through the presidential election in November. Daily Show correspondents will take turns hosting Tuesday through Thursday.

"Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central's The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season," Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime and MTV Entertainment Studios, said in a statement Wednesday. "In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit."

Stewart's shocking return comes 13 months after his successor, Trevor Noah, walked away from The Daily Show. What followed was an exhaustive search for a new host that saw nearly two-dozen familiar faces — Leslie Jones, Wanda Sykes, D.L. Hughley, Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Hasan Minhaj, Marlon Wayans, Kal Penn, Al Franken, John Leguizamo, Roy Wood Jr., Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic, Dulce Sloan, Michael Kosta, Ronny Chieng, Desus Nice, Charlamagne tha God and Michelle Wolf — try out for the gig.  

Minhaj, who at one time was considered the frontrunner, found himself out of the running after a damning New Yorker exposé revealed that he had embellished elements of his standup act. (You can watch his defense here.)

Comedy Central's search was further complicated in October by longtime correspondent Roy Wood Jr.'s decision to leave after eight years. (As Noah accepted The Daily Show's Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series earlier this month, Wood Jr. stood behind him and mouthed what we've all been thinking: "Please hire a host.")

In addition to hosting duties, Stewart will stay on as an executive producer through 2025 and help shape the "next chapter" of the show. His Daily Show encore comes more than eight years after he left Comedy Central, and four months after the cancellation of his Apple TV+ series, The Problem With Jon Stewart, which ran for two seasons.

Shortly after the news broke, Noah weighed in on X, writing: "Yessssssss he's back 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽"

Feast your eyes on the first photo of Stewart back behind the Daily Show desk, then hit the comments with your reactions to his return.