Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show this week with his first episode since Jimmy Kimmel Live! was indefinitely suspended, using the moment to spotlight what he and guest Maria Ressa, described as a rapid collapse of free speech in the U.S. and the Philippines. Kimmel’s program was pulled by ABC after he made controversial remarks earlier this week about Charlie Kirk and Republicans, which led to backlash from allies of U.S. President Donald Trump and pressure from federal regulators.
In the episode that aired on Friday, September 19, in the Philippines, Stewart thanked Ressa for appearing “on short notice.” Ressa then told him, “I told you so.”
The two then recalled that Stewart had once told Ressa, “We’re resilient in our civic institutions,” insisting that the censorship she endured in the Philippines under Duterte “would never happen in the U.S.”
The Filipino journalist said, “I feel like it’s both déjà vu and [post-traumatic stress disorder]… I watched the same thing happen here, that happened to us. The individual judges and justices become targeted, and holding up the rule of law becomes that much harder.”
Ground Zero
Under former President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa and her news outlet Rappler faced relentless harassment by the state. She was hit with several arrest warrants and convicted of cyberlibel in a case widely seen as politically motivated. In 2021, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her defense of press freedom.
In her discussion with Stewart, she pointed out that Americans are like “deer in the headlights” amid what Stewart called Trump’s “assault on free speech.” Ressa has previously called the Philippines as “ground zero in the war on disinformation” and, in her conversation with Stewart, she drew direct parallels between the suppression tactics used by the Duterte administration, such as legal harassment, arrests, revoking licenses, accusations of “fake news.” What she believes is happening in the U.S. now under pressure from political and regulatory forces.
“In 2017, we saw in the Philippines that if you lace it with fear, anger, and hate, it can go viral,” she said of the online harassment she and Rappler received. “That’s the incentive structure. That was used to attack us. If you’re pumped full of toxic sludge, online violence is real-world violence.”
Stewart also noted that “We’ve been told that any attempt to check facts was a curb on free speech,” and that presently, “free speech means speech that supports the president,” pointing to what he sees as a redefinition of core democratic norms.
Ressa said she had warned the U.S. since 2016 that censorship of dissent would come. “There is a dictator’s playbook,” she said. Stewart replied, animatedly, “You think we fell for it?”
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