Jon Stewart won't suspend Gingrich gags

By Chiderah Monde and Ree Hines

Comedy Central

"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart decided deportation might just be the best send off he could imagine for former presidential hopefuls, like Newt Gingrich, who fail to go all the way.

On Wednesday, now-former Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich announced he was putting the brakes on his campaign, effectively clearing the way for Mitt Romney to lock in the Republican nomination -- though he didn't go so far as to endorse his rival. The news was well received on late-night TV.

"Today, I am suspending the campaign," Gingrich said in a clip that aired on "The Daily Show."

"There you have it!" host Jon Stewart cheered. "Not ending, just suspending. He's suspending it, like we all had to do to our disbelief when he thought he was going to be president."

But it was Gingrich's next line that really inspired Stewart to imagine an unlikely future.

"Suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship," Gingrich insisted.

"Wouldn't it be awesome though if it did mean suspending citizenship? Like if you lose a presidential primary, you're deported," Stewart pondered with a smile. "Wouldn't that be awesome?"

A similar sentiment was shared by Stewart's fellow after-dark host, Jimmy Kimmel.

On ?Live,? Kimmel, just days after taking digs at Gingrich during the White House Correspondents? Dinner, kept up the cracks going. This time the zingers revolved around a YouTube video Gingrich recorded to give his supporters ?insider advance notice? that he would be suspending his campaign.

In the video Gingrich, vows to continue on the road, do everything he can to defeat Obama, travel with wife Callista and be an all-round American... But it?s hard to hear the noble farewell or any of his next-step details because in Kimmel?s version of the video, Gingrich stands giving his speech while a couple of movers take apart his office in the back. ?

Maybe those rumors of his campaign running $4 million in debt are true after all.

On Wednesday, Newt Gingrich suspended his bid for the White House, and Willie Geist bids him a fond farewell. And in other water cooler news, there's a new video of a lion behind plexiglass at a zoo really wanting to go after a human baby.

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