Jon Stewart addresses 'The Daily Show's' Milwaukee RNC cancellation in Tuesday episode
On “The Daily Show” last night, Jon Stewart talked about the show’s cancellation of its planned appearances in Milwaukee during the RNC.
“The Daily Show” was originally slated to film its Monday through Thursday episodes in front of an audience at the Marcus Performing Arts Center. There was also a Cathedral Square Park event scheduled for the day before the RNC. The event — “Indogcision 2024” — was planned in partnership with the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission and voter registration group Headcount. The goal of the event ― the title of which is a play on Comedy Central's election coverage lineup, "Indecision 2024" ― was to find homes for rescue dogs and to register people to vote.
After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday, the show announced that it was canceling its Milwaukee appearances “due to logistical issues and the evolving situation in Milwaukee.”
On his Tuesday night show — the first Daily Show episode since the start of the RNC — Stewart said one of the reasons for canceling Milwaukee plans was that the Marcus Performing Arts Center shifted from the soft security perimeter to the hard security perimeter.
“You don’t want to be in the hard perimeter,” Stewart joked, adding that law enforcement had added “cages around the theater” and that, “We didn’t feel we’d be able to do the show effectively without people.”
The perimeter boundaries did not change in the aftermath of the attempted assassination, although Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday that the agency had “strengthened” its security plan for the RNC.
Stewart also said that Mayor Cavalier Johnson “could not have been more accommodating to the show, more gracious to us,” and that he hopes to be able to reschedule the show’s appearance in Milwaukee, especially the Indogcision event.
Other late night show hosts’ coverage of the RNC touched more on the political goings-on, with few mentions of Milwaukee, although Stephen Colbert joked about Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer’s speech delivery on Tuesday, comparing his volume and mannerisms to comedian (and Marquette graduate) Chris Farley’s famous “van down by the river” SNL sketch.
Contact Amy Schwabe at (262) 875-9488 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @WisFamilyJS, Instagram at @wisfamilyjs or Facebook at WisconsinFamily.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jon Stewart talks about The Daily Show Milwaukee RNC cancellation
