Jon Stewart is returning to The Daily Show thanks to The Problem with Jon Stewart's cancelation, Hasan Minhaj's standup

...controversy and Hollywood strikes

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/jon-stewart-daily-show-host-deal-1235806584/

The Hollywood Reporter's Lacey Rose reports a deal with Minhaj "was all but done by late summer, when The New Yorker published an article alleging that he’d exaggerated and, in some cases, made up autobiographical details of his comedy. Though Minhaj called the piece 'needlessly misleading,' he was suddenly seen as a liability, and the host search began anew." At that point, the hosting search had already been delayed by the writers' and actors' strikes. "Those who have worked with Stewart speculate that the timing was ideal – and not simply because his post-Daily Show work had garnered mixed results," says Rose. "For those keeping track, there was a long-gestating topical animated show for HBO that never came to fruition, and a political comedy film, starring Steve Carell, that failed to get much traction. Then came his Apple TV+ series, which skewed more ‘eat your vegetables’ than laugh-out-loud funny — that is, until the entire partnership went south. Sources have cited creative differences between the iPhone maker and Stewart, a born provocateur and arguably our country’s foremost political satirist, over potential topics, including China, which led to The Problem with Jon Stewart being pulled in Oct. 2023. So, the married father of two was suddenly available, and about to be an empty nester. And, unlike that earnest Apple vehicle, the Daily Show platform allows him to be more topical and, thus, more relevant, particularly as an all-important election cycle heats up. What’s more, he didn’t have to commit to four nights a week..."