Earlier this week, TruthRevolt reported that Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart deliberately misled several Washington Redskins fans into appearing on the show to defend the now controversial mascot without telling them they'd be ambushed by professional, full-time, left-wing Native American activists. As stated in the Washington Post, producers lied to the fans even after they specifically asked if they would be confronted by Native Americans. Thursday night, despite the controversy surrounding the segment, Stewart and his producers chose to air it anyway with a few caveats to make up for the bad press.

Leading into the segment, Stewart addressed the controversy head-on and stated the following: 

We work very hard to find real people, who have real beliefs, and want to express those beliefs on television, and we work hard to make sure that the gist of those beliefs are represented accurately, albeit, sometimes comedically on our program. If we find out that someone in a piece was intentionally misled or if their comments misrepresented, we do not air that piece, we would not air the piece.

Stewart's comments addressed none of the grievances expressed by the fans to the Washington Post. The fans expressed no complaints about having their beliefs, comments, or behaviors misrepresented on The Daily Show. In fact, the fans openly expressed they knew mockery would ensue had they appeared on Stewart's program and were happy to "take one for the team" so to speak in defense of their favorite football team. As stated explicitly and in clear print, the fans were angered that the show's producers deliberately lied to them about appearing before a group of professional Native Americans activists.

Brian Dortch, a Redskins fan who agreed to the invitation, stated the following in regards to the incident:

"They told us they were going to have a fan panel, and, at some other time, they were going to do a panel with Native Americans. So I said back, ‘Just to clarify, specifically, we’re not doing a cross-panel discussion right?’ The producer said, ‘Yeah, right. That would be too serious for Comedy Central.’”

Dortch's claims were also backed up by Bobby Wilson, one of the Native Americans present during the ambush, who said:

"They essentially explained days in advance that the fans are going to be in there, and they’re just going to be essentially justifying the use of the word Redskins and the use of racial imagery, and they’re going to say a lot of things they would most likely not say in front of American Indians — and that we were going to go in there and see if they’d actually say all of that in front of us. That was definitely something we could get on board with. It didn’t seem strange or unfair on our end, considering that each of us has always been confronting racism on this level.”

Kelli O'Dell, one of the fans present, stated that she "felt threatened and later called police," because "the Native Americans accused me of things that were so wrong. I felt in danger. I didn’t consent to that. I am going to be defamed.”

For most of its seven-minute running length, the segment cross-cut back and forth between Daily Show contributor Jason Jones interviewing the panel of Redskins fans and the panel of Native American activists. The fans said they love their team, they love the name, and they don't want it to change. The activists said they hate the name, called it racist, and wanted it changed immediately. Both the activists and Jason Jones completely ignored the documented historical fact that the name "Redskin" originated among the Native Americans themselves; that a predominantly Native American high-school in Spokane, Washington, voted to affirm the the very name "Redskin" as the school mascot; that in Andarko, Oklahoma, a city evenly divided between Native American's and whites, has a movie theatre called "Redskin Theatre"; or that the name "Oklahoma" itself means "Red People" in Choctaw. 

When time finally came to the actually ambush, The Daily Show simply showed inaudible clips of the Redskins fans and Native American activists shouting back and forth at each other beneath a voiceover by Jason Jones saying the following:

"It turns out these fans weren't comfortable having that conversation. In fact, afterward, they relayed to The Washington Post that they felt 'ambushed,' 'in danger,' and 'defamed.' Yes, the conversation was heated at times, but there were also handshakes and even the ceremonial handkerchief. In the end, they said they still would have gone on the show, had they known there would be a debate, but at least one of them said he 'still wouldn't have worn his Redskins jacket.'"

In an interview with CBS, respected civil attorney Keith Marcus said the four guests might have a legal case to make against The Daily Show.

"Definitely the people could have a claim," Marcus told reporters. "If there was misrepresentation to what was to take place and if that misrepresentation then puts them in a bad light, they clearly might have something to work with.”