I’ve always thought he was the obvious choice. This “scandal” has always just been a bunch of BS. Today’s video is backed up by evidence that it was. For some reason, The New Yorker wanted to drag him through the mud and ignore all evidence. If he actually lost the gig because of the article, he should sue them to oblivion.
Hasan is doing a stand up tour and I’m too excited to see him next weekend and hear his takes on all of this. Will have to check back after that to answer
What, I didn’t know he’s touring right now. Thanks for the heads up!
Edit: Oh I didn’t know it was still the Kings Jester. I wonder if he’ll have to change any of it because of everything.
This tour is called “Off with his head” so it BETTER be about this recent controversy or else I’ll riot
Since the embellishing was during his standup specials not the patriot act absolutely.
I haven’t watched his self-defense/apology video yet so I’ll have to check it out. But I never wanted him in the first place. He’s smart, but not all that funny.
And I’m not sure he would have been the right host to revive the ratings either. Bits need to be a tad silly and outrageous in order to grab attention or go viral. I think ALL of the current correspondents are better at that than Hasan.
I’ll preface this by saying I’m lukewarm on him at best. I thought he was just ok on the Patriot Act, and his style of comedy is not the right energy for me to find entertaining during the Daily Show’s time slot.
My take is that it is okay to embellish, hyperbolize, or even fabricate stories to get laughs as a comedian. It’s a commonly accepted practice. So as far as his standup career or whatever, I don’t think it should have to suffer because of the recent scandal or whatever.
The Daily Show, however, is different from standard standup. The Daily Show is (for me at least) meant to be a way to discuss real-time political issues with some comedy thrown in. In order for a Daily Show host to be a good fit, they have to have some credibility when reporting on things that happened or did not happen. My understanding is that the Daily Show has historically done well in communicating what is actually happening, and then layering funny opinions on top of that.
If the host cannot be trusted to at least be somewhat accurate when describing what is happening, that kills the whole formula for me. Their opinion/reaction to what is happening is the part where they can and should take liberties to be hyperbolic for some laughs.
As such, I don’t think he’s a good fit for the Daily Show as the host.
Hasan Minhaj has always been extremely reliable in his political comedy. He is up there with John Oliver… They are probably 1a, 1b in terms of accuracy. I have actually seen John Oliver be incorrect on certain things when he talks about industries that I am well versed in. He tends to take a political stance sometimes more than a factual stance (which is very hard to do when talking about certain subjects)