Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC, in their anticipated face-off on "The Daily Show," repeatedly chastising the "Mad Money" host for putting entertainment above journalism.
"I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a ... game," Stewart told Cramer.
The program opened in mock hype of the confrontation, which caught headlines through the week as each snipped at the other over the air. The show announced it as "the weeklong feud of the century."
In his opening, Stewart announced that it was "go time." He played a video clip of Cramer's Thursday guest appearance on "The Martha Stewart Show" in which Cramer beat a mound of dough, pretending it was Stewart.
Said Stewart: "Mr. Cramer, don't you destroy enough dough on your own show?"
Once Cramer came out for the interview, Stewart wondered: "How the hell did we get here?"
Stewart said he and Cramer are both snake-oil salesman, only "The Daily Show" is labeled as such. He claimed CNBC shirked its journalistic duty by believing corporate lies, rather than being an investigative "powerful tool of illumination." And he alleged CNBC was ultimately in bed with the businesses it covered _ that regular people's stocks and 401Ks were "capitalizing on your adventure."
For his part, Cramer disagreed with Stewart on a few points, but mostly acknowledged that he could have done a better job foreseeing the economic collapse: "We all should have seen it more."
Cramer said CNBC was "fair game" to the criticism and acknowledged the network was perhaps overeager to believe the information it was fed from corporations.
Cramer insisted he was devoted to revealing corporate "shenanigans," to which Stewart retorted: "It's easy to get on this after the fact."
At one point, Cramer sounded the reformed sinner, responding to Stewart's plea for more levelheaded, honest commentary: "How about I try that?" said Cramer. "I'll do that."
By the end, the two-segment interview went far beyond its allotted time. Comedy Central said the on-air version would be cut by about eight minutes, though the entire interview would be available unedited on ComedyCentral.com on Friday. See the unedited interview below.
Intro:
Jim Cramer criticizes Rick Santelli's rant and admits he made his own mistakes, in this exclusive, uncensored video.
Jon presents Jim Cramer with some old footage from his shady hedge fund days in this exclusive, uncensored video.
Jim Cramer defends his role as a commentator on an entertainment show in this exclusive, uncensored video.
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