Elizabeth Warren was extremely nervous before her first "Daily Show" appearance

The Massachusetts senator recounts in her upcoming book how the thought of facing Jon Stewart made her nauseous

Published April 18, 2014 2:43PM (EDT)

  (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
(AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

She's not someone the public thinks of as easily spooked, but according to a passage in her upcoming memoir, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wasn't merely nervous when she made her first appearance on "The Daily Show" — she was downright terrified.

"I was miserable," Warren writes in the book. "I had stage fright — gut-wrenching, stomach-turning, bile-filled stage fright. And I was stuck in a gloomy little bathroom, about to go on 'The Daily Show.'"

Her main concern at the time, Warren writes, was that "Daily Show" host, comedian Jon Stewart, would make a mockery of the fight for financial regulation she was working so hard to promote.

"I was having serious doubts about going through with this," Warren writes. "I had talked to reporters and been interviewed plenty of times, but this was different. At any second, the whole interview could turn into a giant joke — and what if the joke turned on the work I was trying to do?"

Yet while the interview got off to a rocky start, with Warren correcting Stewart's pronunciation of an acronym and then forgetting what it actually stood for, things ended up working out quite well for Warren in the end. After she explained to Stewart and the "Daily Show" audience why she believed financial regulation was so vital, Stewart responded, "[This] is probably the first time in probably six months to a year that I feel better. I don't know what it is you just did right there. But for a second that was like financial chicken soup for me."

You can see part one of Warren's first "Daily Show" appearance below, via Comedy Central:


By Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a former Salon staff writer.

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