Jon Stewart hosted FTC (Federal Trade Commission) chair Lina Khan on his weekly Daily Show segment yesterday, but Stewart's own revelations were just as interesting as Khan's. During the sit-down, Stewart admitted that Apple asked him not to host Khan on a podcast, which was an extension of his The Problem with Jon Stewart Apple TV+ show at the time.

"I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it," Stewart told Khan. "They literally said, 'Please don’t talk to her.'"

In fact, the entire episode appeared to have a "things Apple would let us do" theme. Ahead of the Khan interview, Stewart did a segment on artificial intelligence he called "the false promise of AI," effectively debunking altruistic claims of AI leaders and positing that it was strictly designed to replace human employees.

"They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI," he told Khan. "Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?"

Kahn responded by saying: "I think it just shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies. I mean going back all the way to the founding, there was a recognition that in the same way that you need the constitution to create checks and balances in our political sphere, you also needed the antitrust and anti-monopoly laws to safeguard against concentration of economic power because you don't want an autocrat of trade in the same way that you don't want a monarch." You could view this segment of the video starting at the 15.53 minute mark until the 17:40 minute mark. 

'The Problem With Jon Stewart' show was abruptly cancelled ahead of its third season, reportedly following clashes over potential AI and China segments. That prompted US lawmakers to question Apple, seeking to know if the decision had anything to do with possible criticism of China. For more, read the full report by Engadget.

On March 21, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Watch the full news conference regarding U.S. Attorney General's announcement of their Antitrust case against Apple."