Jim Cramer fires back at Jon Stewart amid debate over financial coverage

The ongoing economic crisis has now spawned another contretemps: a full-blown media feud between “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart and CNBC pundit Jim Cramer.

As the two television personalities exchanged retorts on the air this week, a broader debate is raging about whether the financial press did an adequate job covering Wall Street’s handling of the complex transactions that precipitated the current recession. CNBC, the most prominent business news network, has come in for a large share of criticism that the media failed to alert the public to the system’s precarious footing.

Stewart savaged the cable channel last week with an eight-minute segment that strung together some of the most bullish remarks made by the network’s anchors and pundits during the last two years.

“If I’d only followed CNBC’s advice, I’d have a million dollars today -– provided I’d started with a hundred million dollars,” Stewart quipped.

Cramer, a former hedge fund manager who hosts the popular 3 p.m. PST show “Mad Money,” played a recurring role in Stewart’s mash-up.

“Bear Stearns is fine!” he shouted in his trademark bellow in one clip, less than a week before the investment house went under. “Bear Stearns is not in trouble.”

CNBC has remained mum about Stewart's jibes. But Cramer broke the network's silence this week and defended himself.

In a column posted Monday on MainStreet.com, he complained that Stewart took his words out of context. He wasn’t talking about buying Bear Stearns stock, Cramer noted, but was reassuring a viewer that money held in Bear Stearns accounts was safe.

“The absurdity astounds me,” Cramer wrote of Stewart’s critique.

Stewart responded on Monday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” offering up a partial mea culpa.

“OK. I was wrong,” the comedian said. “He was simply saying that if Bear was your broker or if your money was at Bear, your money would not disappear. He was not addressing the value of holding Bear stock. So Jim Cramer, I apologize.

“You weren’t suggesting to buy Bear Stearns,” he added with a sly smile. “That was something that you did five days earlier.”

Stewart then aired a clip from March 6, 2008, in which Cramer roared, “I believe in the Bear franchise. You know what? At 69 bucks, I’m not giving up on the thing!”

Cramer fired back Tuesday during an appearance on the “Today” show.

“Oh, oh, a comedian is attacking me!” he said mockingly. “Wow! He runs a variety show!”

“Did I make a mistake?” Cramer added. “First of all, any time you recommend a stock and it goes down, you've made a mistake. Here's a shocker: Almost every stock is down! Any stock you recommended is bad. You know, Warren Buffett, I could run tapes from him, he would look like a complete fool.”

The “Mad Money” host noted that Stewart has not shown the clip of Cramer’s appearance on “Today” in October, when he caused a stir by saying people should immediately sell and get out of the market.

“That was 35 percent ago,” Cramer said. “Whatever he says, Bear Stearns this or that, that was a call that should have wrecked my career. And it would have, if the market had gone up. But I stuck my neck out and did it and saved a lot of people money.”

UPDATE: Apparently, that won't be the final word on this topic. According to a Comedy Central spokesman, Stewart plans to volley back at Cramer yet again on tonight's "Daily Show."

-- Matea Gold

Comments

[Bridger]

"But I stuck my neck out and did it and saved a lot of people money.”

It's not really clear how he did that. Explain how recommending Bear Stearns saved people money. Maybe he's made some other good calls that have saved people money, his Bear Stearns calls definitely did not.

He should have just kept quite about the first clip The Daily Show aired about him.

After he whined about the 1st clip, the Daily Show did a pretty good job of making him look like a fool for whining.

He recommends stocks. He made a mistake, people made fun of him, he should get over it.

[R Tray]

Go Jon Go!
Cramer is a complete idiot, and I'd imagine that anyone that has followed him over the last few years (and I'm sure lost money) would agree.
How many people think this guy is still worth watching?

[GTFOOH]

DID CRAMER NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM MICHAEL STEELE? YOU NEVER PICK A FIGHT WITH A COMEDIAN. AND THAT RANT ON MORNING JOE, ABOUT HOW HE WANTS ALL OF HIS MONEY BACK FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY...WHAT A WHINEY ASS HE TURNED OUT TO BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TD]

To the Daily Show writers who are inevitably going to read this article a dozen times over to milk it for comedic potential:

See if you can't get Jon to raise some money for a charity by promising to have him eat a whole sausage wrapped pancake on a stick dipped in baconnaise at the end of a show if $50,000 is donated at the Daily Show website. Because that seems like something a variety show would do, y'know.

[al]

Jim is not always right, but I listened to him in October and sold all my stock. I was able to curtail a loss of 17% from going down to what would be 47% if I owned the stock today. Listen if I was really smart I would have sold everything in December, but the market is a tough gig. Jim, though, has been more right than wrong and those who seem to think that they are smarter than him should compare their performance to his the last 20 years. Remember he went from homeless to one of the most successful hedgefund managers in ten years.

[Happy4LA]

Is there any doubt Cramer is a fool and a charlatan? He speaks oout of both sides of his mouth, "Buy Bear Stearns", "We've reached a bottom," "Get out of the market (if you need it in the next five years)." Yet Jim continued to buy on his RealMoney.com site after his "Get out of the Market" call. Why would he do this if he knew he was so "right"? And as Aaron Task said:

"The real issue here is that Cramer defended himself after the original "Daily Show" piece saying he'd been "taken out of context." Here, Stewart shows how Cramer's defense, while technically correct (about that specific "don't take your $$ out of Bear" clip), was very wrong in the larger context of what Cramer did/didn't say about Bear stock in the weeks/months prior to March 2008.
...
Bigger issue: As Biz Week's Aaron Pressman Tweeted: How is it that fake newscaster John Stewart unearthed all Cramer's actual buy recommendations on Bear Stearns and no "real" media did? We in the media were sleeping at the switch. "

[Happy4LA]

al, what evidence do you have to say that Jim Cramer has been "more right than wrong"? I've been a subscriber to his website for 8 years, and I think your statement does not hold up under overwhelming evidence. Looks to me Jim in the video is going to one instance when he was right, but a week later he was recommending new stocks.

[What]

How did Jim Cramer, a Harvard grad, ever experience homelessness? Lies.

[Randy Miller]

Thank God for Jon Stewart. CNBC has not been held accountable for its lousy coverage of the economy and its fawning interviews. Gasparino and Burnett are OK, but Cramer, Kudlow, and the morning guys are horrible. The jury is still out on Leesman.

Interesting that CNBC's sister networks are all gathering the wagons around CNBC. Cramer has been on morning Joe and Today acting like he is getting persecuted, and the usually sensible crowd on Morning Joe are starting to sound like the guys on Fox. A word of advice to Joe and Myka......quit trusting what you hear from CNBC.

[Joey Buttafucco]

Cramer is a fraud. He slings more crap than a two-assed cow.

[bob]

erin burnett does not know what a zombie bank is....
i thought kramer was going to cry.
who would ever take these two seriously. They don't know the first thing about politics or the economy. they are just intellectually dishonest.

[Ethered]

Mark my words, dora the explorer. Jon Stewart will ether Jim Cramer tonight.

[Adam]

Cramer, listen closely and listen well: you do not, in any conceivable sense, form or function, have a leg to stand on in this matter. Your job is to advise Americans who have a limited understanding of the stock market on it's works and how to invest. You told these people to purchase stock in a bank and then told clients of that bank to leave their money in that bank, all but guaranteeing them that no ill would come to it. That bank then experienced a colossal meltdown. That money disappeared. You cannot salvage this mess through any sort of reasoning. Bear Stearns is at fault for having miserable and incompetent management that ran their own company into the ground and you are accountable to those Americans who followed your assured advice and saw their money disappear because of how improperly you did your job. Apologize about the matter and move on.

[dlo]

I think what people need to remeber is that Jim Cramer makes a living out of buying and selling stocks, while at the same time being in the precarious position of hosting a nationaly broadcast financial news show called MAD MONEY!!! Does anybody else see the conflict of interest here?!?!

[Dr. Lizardo]

Cramer is a First-Class LOSER, and Stewart nailed him six-ways from Sunday for his absolutely bogus, idiotic stock market recommendations, esp. about Bear Stearns.

Stewart made Cramer look like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down in the movie Dr. Strangelove! Hootin' an' hollerin' - and riding the Bear-Stearns stock all the way to Ground ZERO!

If you or I were as WRONG in our jobs as this buffoon Cramer has been about the stock market in general, we'd be fired long ago.

[Ben S]

Jim Cramer is a liar and a fool and it shows how terrible all of NBC is that not only would they give him a failure of a show, but then they'd actually defend his obvious mistakes. When Daily Show burns you, there is no question as to whether he did it or not, murky situations aren't as funny as the clear cut screw ups that Cramer provided Stuart.

[Gloombergnews]

Stewart and Colbert Nation,

Here is a Promo Poster/Image I made for Thursday's showdown! Hopefully Colbert or Stewart will see this and use it on Wednesday to promote the show!

http://gloombergnews.com/?p=470

GN

[Jo]

The “Mad Money” host noted that Stewart has not shown the clip of Cramer’s appearance on “Today” in October, when he caused a stir by saying people should immediately sell and get out of the market.

“That was 35 percent ago,” Cramer said. “Whatever he says, Bear Stearns this or that, that was a call that should have wrecked my career. And it would have, if the market had gone up. But I stuck my neck out and did it and saved a lot of people money.”

Wow...as the market goes down, he yells get out. How brave! He's a front running idiot. Whatever happened to buy low, sell high? I guess Cramers philosophy is buy high, sell low. Every respectable adviser is saying look for buying opportunities when the market goes down. Cramer is a fake and a fraud, and I'm shaming myself right now by giving him any due at all.

[rbk]

Cramer is an idiot and anytime he opens his mouth he looks worse and worse. Stewart's rant against him and CNBC is one for the ages.

[Larry Linn]

The Daily Show and the Cobert Report use comedy as a veneer to report and provide commentary on the news. Rick Santelli, Bill O'Realy, Rush Limball, and others use "news" as a facade to keep their egos inflated.