“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said Monday that Apple asked to censor a podcast he was developing in conjunction with his previous series on AppleTV+.
Stewart made the claim during an interview with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan, telling her that he wanted to interview her in the past, but he was stopped. “I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it,” Stewart told Khan, referring to a spin-off podcast from his Apple series “The Problem With Jon Stewart.”
“They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her,'” Stewart claimed. “Having nothing to do with what you do for a living, I don’t think they cared for you.” It’s unclear when the situation is supposed to have occurred. Stewart’s show was cancelled by Apple in October 2023. And apparently the tech giant didn’t just want to avoid the FTC despite Khan’s FTC not being involved with Apple’s antitrust lawsuit, CNN noted.
“They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI,” Stewart continued. “Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”
Stewart and Khan also delved into the alleged monopoly constructed by Amazon and other major technology companies and how these influence U.S. business. (RELATED: Is Tucker Carlson Trolling Or Is He Flirting With A Run At The White House?)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and a slew of state attorneys general filed antitrust suits against Apple in March, claiming the company has an illegal monopoly over the cell phone market, along with other aspects of their technological development.
Jon Stewart Comes To Rogan’s Defense Again, Compares Media Attacks To Iraq War Opposition | @DailyCaller https://t.co/MLCOMlXtXC
— KAY SMYTHE (@KaySmythe) February 11, 2022
“I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies,” Khan replied, having previously noted examples including Big Pharma’s extreme costs passed over to consumers to save their lives.
Khan and her team are looking to get to the “root cause” of the claimed monopoly problems within U.S. businesses and to identify the “mafia boss” running these industries. Stewart suggested that “Biblical sin” was probably at the root of these alleged behaviors.
Apple did not immediately return the Daily Caller’s request for comment on Stewart’s claims.
You can watch the full video here: