After taking all of August off, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show returned on Tuesday with host Jon Stewart welcoming Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to the show to promote his new book on helping Americans not hate each other as much. At one point Stewart questioned Cox’s commitment to the idea when he demanded to know why Cox hasn’t forced Utahans to bake cakes for same-sex weddings even if that would violate their religious beliefs.
The context for such a question was Utah making it illegal to fire someone for being gay but maintaining First Amendment protections for people such as wedding cake bakers. For Stewart, such a compromise was not good enough, “I think that it's certainly an admirable effort. It is hard for me not to look at it as there is a vulnerable—there is a power disparity in that equation and that the gay community in Utah is not equivalent to the Christian community in Utah.”
Stewart further claimed, “You are asking a community of people whose humanity has not been recognized as total to accept that they will be—you will still be—we can't fire you, but we will still view you as aberrant, and we will enshrine that in the law because it does—if you flip that and you say to somebody, 'I will not bake a cake because you believe in Jesus for your wedding,' I think you can see that that is a contemptuous position.”
Finally getting to something resembling a question, Stewart wondered, “And so asking a group that is traditionally less righted to accept a bargain for their humanity still strikes me fundamentally as—I don't want to say contemptible, but boy, there are some synonyms that are hard for me—it is a hard one to swallow as a victory. Does that resonate in any way?”
Cox, who was the first conservative/Republican guest on a late night comedy show in 13 months, began to reply, “I mean, it resonates, but I don't think that that was how it was viewed, and again, You can talk to them. I'll let them have that conversation.”
Stewart then interrupted to joke that he won’t be doing that, “I'm not going to end up—I do one show a week, man! I spent my whole August reading this thing. Yeah.”
After the laughter from the audience died down, Cox resumed, “What I will say is those protections went both ways, and it's not about contempt. It is about religious freedom, which is really important to people. You wouldn't have to bake a cake for Christians if you didn't want to. That is also included in the law. We’re not going to force you to do that piece. And yet at the time. Again, this was incredibly rare. It had never happened. Those types of protections in a red state, and it didn't have to happen. That is the point.”
The last year has been defined by the late night comedy shows trying to portray themselves as the guardians of the First Amendment, but when it comes to defending the First Amendment rights of a common baker, Jon Stewart thinks the First Amendment is disposable.
Here is a transcript for the August 8 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
9/8/2026
11:44 PM ET
JON STEWART: I think that it's certainly an admirable effort. It is hard for me not to look at it as there is a vulnerable—there is a power disparity in that equation and that the gay community in Utah is not equivalent to the Christian community in Utah.
And so the difficulty I have in that, just being honest—
SPENCER COX: Yeah.
STEWART: —is that you are asking a community of people whose humanity has not been recognized as total to accept that they will be—you will still be—we can't fire you, but we will still view you as aberrant, and we will enshrine that in the law because it does—if you flip that and you say to somebody, “I will not bake a cake because you believe in Jesus for your wedding,” I think you can see that that is a contemptuous position.
And so asking a group that is traditionally less righted to accept a bargain for their humanity still strikes me fundamentally as—I don't want to say contemptible, but boy, there are some synonyms that are hard for me—it is a hard one to swallow as a victory. Does that resonate in any way?
COX: I mean, it resonates, but I don't think that that was how it was viewed, and again—
STEWART: Right. Fair enough.
COX: You can talk to them. I'll let them have that conversation.
STEWART: I'm not going to end up—I do one show a week, man! I spent my whole August reading this thing. Yeah.
COX: What I will say is those protections went both ways, and it's not about contempt. It is about religious freedom, which is really important to people. You wouldn't have to bake a cake for Christians if you didn't want to. That is also included in the law. We’re not going to force you to do that piece. And yet at the time—
STEWART: Yeah.
COX: — again, this was incredibly rare. It had never happened. Those types of protections in a red state, and it didn't have to happen. That is the point.
