Michael Kosta: An Empathetic Jock Ready to Spoof Our Time

Hosting presents an inevitable comedic challenge for Kosta. He must switch from sporting a persona on one night (this could be the jerkish finance bro, or a dude in a panda costume) and pivot to playing the actual Michael Kosta. This requires him to not only deliver the day’s monologue but also be an informed interlocutor for the evening’s guest, who could be a celebrity or celebrated scholar.

Most mornings begin with a blinking cursor and a blank computer screen, which will slowly start to be filled in during the program’s morning meeting. From there, the host, no longer a wacky character, begins to steer the direction of that day’s show, knowing full well that they, like Stewart, will be speaking as but a slightly exaggerated or performative version of themself. And by the time taping starts, the day’s host has had the final say on the episode’s direction. “There’s a lot of very intelligent people, comedy minds, guiding the show, and I’m thankful for that,” he says. “When I’m saying it at the desk, you can feel confident that that’s me.”

In his memoir, Kosta recounts many intense tennis matches, a mix of triumphant and failed bouts that ultimately made him a better player and person. He also talks about tennis as both a solo endeavor and a team sport. A similar dynamic seems to play out on The Daily Show, where hosts, like a tennis team, must both work together as one—volleying back and forth to sharpen their comedic skills— and be ready to perform alone before the camera when their name is called. 

In The Field

Palpable in Kosta’s comedy is his empathy. In our conversation, and in his memoir, he credits this—his genuine interest in other people—to his parents. “I mean, I still feel weird doing an interview where I’m not asking you a question next,” he told me. “My mom said, if someone asks you a question, you ask them a question.”

In Lucky Loser, Kosta gets brutally honest about his life and the inevitable mistakes one makes along the way. For example, he recalls cheating a competitor out of a point during a match while at the University of Illinois. He still thinks about it to this day. This openness is yet another aspect of his comedy, an essential twin to the cocky persona: a promise not to harshly judge, and to forgive. 

But the cocky character is only one tool in Kosta’s comedy arsenal. His genuine curiosity in the lives of others comes through in his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show. Unlike his bravado-filled financial analysis, this is when Kosta goes out into the field to file humorous but informative reports in the classic Daily Show style. He has a philosophy for these moments, one that is, again, rooted in empathy.

“I’m not trying to hurt anybody,” he says. “In the beginning, I was getting the sense people wanted the gotcha moment. That isn’t how I approach comedy. That isn’t how I was raised.”

Watch a Kosta piece and you will see how he masterfully treads this line. See, for example, a recent trip he took to a luxury doomsday ranch in upstate New York. It is, of course, important to laugh at the absurdity of such locations (namely, that there are people rich enough to waste money each month on them). But for Kosta, the questions he asks are genuine, seemingly respectful of the fact that, well, we are living in a moment defined by a range of natural and man-made disasters: maybe having a Plan B isn’t so bad after all?

This empathy can be found across Kosta’s work, going back to his earliest days at The Daily Show. He is particularly proud of a 2018 piece, for which he traveled to a Trump rally to chat with the MAGA faithful about the U.S. Space Force, then merely a proposal, now the sixth branch of the nation’s military. In the report, it soon becomes clear that attendees don’t really understand what they purport to back.

“If you watch it closely, I’m not ‘getting’ them,” he says. “They’re talking and they’re saying funny things, but it isn’t me being mean to them.”

Beyond the Character

In Lucky Loser, Kosta remembers fondly breaking into the business through the Ann Arbor comedy scene. He worked as a tennis coach at the University of Michigan by day, writing jokes in his car at lunch so he would be ready to hit the clubs at night. Coming from the Midwest is important to Kosta’s sense of self and his comedic sensibility, giving him an outlook not often found on the coasts of Los Angeles, where he first moved to try and make it, and New York, where he lives now. 

Though obviously left-leaning, The Daily Show has for decades risen about the lazy focus on party politics, the, as Stewart famously described it, “partisan hackery” that has so dominated television, whether it be cable news or even elements of network late night television. 

With Trump 2.0, the old party lines have been redrawn even more sharply, leaving pundits scrambling to see the field. Into this breach steps The Daily Show, poking fun at that which partisan hackery makes impossible to see: the absurdity of the system, and the ways it benefits those in power. Never, for example, is Stewart having more fun than when he is mocking the fecklessness of Chuck Schumer. 

This relentless focus on power has given The Daily Show a credibility that stretches across the ideological spectrum. It’s a phenomenon similar to why episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver break through to spaces where MSNBC (MS NOW?) segments and Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologues are unlikely to play. And it’s why the far-right has had to uncomfortably live with being the butt of the joke in the current season of South Park.

Kosta’s noncoastal upbringing, as well as his passion for sports (a love shared with many of the country’s politically lost), make him an incisive and original contributor to this Daily Show tradition. For Kosta, this all comes back to empathy, something that, if the country is to survive, we must cultivate and harvest in bundles. As Kosta continues to grow on The Daily Show, especially the more he gets to be himself, he has noticed that his cocky comedy persona has begun to drift away, even in his stand-up. 

“I’ve gotten older, progressed in life,” Kosta says. “I think if anything, I’ve become more humble and modest, and I now don’t play as much of that character.”

Hitting the road as a standup has provided a window into the country that infuses the curiosity and empathy we see each week on The Daily Show. Politics do not figure as much in his stand-up, but Kosta says while traveling, he has “very frequently been dumbfounded at how out of touch each part of the country is with each other.” He recalls being in industry meetings and thinking to himself just how little the coasts seemed to understand the heartland. But in this, he sees opportunity. 

“Oh, you hate the city? Go spend a weekend in the city. Oh, you hate Pennsylvania? Go hang in Pennsylvania,” Kosta says. “You’re gonna have a wonderful experience.”

 Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.