Jon Stewart is weighing in on ABC terminating Terry Moran’s employment.
The Daily Show host had strong feelings about the network’s decision not to renew Moran’s contract after the journalist made a now-deleted X post criticizing President Donald Trump’s administration.
Responding to a caller who asked whether ABC should have fired Moran, Stewart responded on the Thursday, June 12, episode of his “The Weekly Show” podcast, “Of course not. So stupid. No, for God’s sake. They shouldn’t have fired him.”
Stewart went on to criticize the network, describing it as a “f***ing joke.”
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“Literally every day on Fox News, they’re taking stuff out of context, or their people are saying utterly vicious things about Democratic politicians and all kinds of other things,” Stewart, 62, said. “The entire thing is because ABC clings to this facade that they somehow exist in a bubble outside of all of this. It’s a joke.”
ABC News said on Tuesday, June 10, it would not renew Moran’s contract after previously suspending him over a tweet about Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
“We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post — which was a clear violation of ABC News policies, we have made the decision to not renew,” a spokesperson for the network said in a statement. “At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness, and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.”
ABC had initially suspended Moran on Sunday, June 8, following criticism of the post by the White House press secretary.
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Moran, 65, referred to Miller and Trump, 78, as “world-class hater[s]” in an X post that has since been deleted.
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate,” Moran posted. “Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred is only a means to an end, and that end his his own glorification [sic]. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the criticism, writing via X earlier this month, “This is unhinged and unacceptable. We have reached out to @ABC to inquire about how they plan to hold Terry accountable.”
Moran, ABC News’ senior national correspondent, had been with the network since 1997 before his departure.
