Trevor Noah unpacks Trump's claim to be a 'stable genius'

Trevor Noah on Trump claiming to be a &quot;stable genius&quot;

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Daily Show)

last updated 9 January 2018

"If someone wrote a book about you not being mentally fit, and you knew it was all lies, a smart person would ignore the bulls--t and carry on with his life," Trevor Noah said on Monday's Daily Show. "But Donald Trump is not that person." President Trump lashed out at Michael Wolff and his new book, Fire and Fury, saying in a weekend tweetstorm that he's "like, really smart," and also a "stable genius." "This is, like, really funny," Noah said. "Only Donald Trump could defend himself and in the same sentence, completely undermine his whole point."

Noah spent the next few minutes ruminating on "stable genius — which I guess is Einstein if he owned a comb?" On the one hand, calling yourself a stable genius on Twitter is a "delusionally confident" move, Noah said, playing examples of other self-declared geniuses. But actually, "I guess Trump is stable. I mean, look at his life: Twitter, golf, bedtime, cheeseburger, fall asleep, do it again. He's the only thing that hasn't changed since he became president. If anything, Trump is stable and he's made everyone else unstable."

"Trump was always going to come out and tell us that he has a very good brain," Noah said. "What was fun was watching the grown-ups around him pretend that they don't see what's blatantly obvious." The Trump allies and appointees who went on TV to defend Trump "aren't just saying that Donald Trump is of sound mind, they're basically saying that all of us are mentally unstable for questioning him," Noah said, even as some of these same Republicans called him crazy. "Look, I guess what the Republicans are saying is this: Yes, Donald Trump was a deranged lunatic unfit to be president, but once he won the Electoral College, then he became a stable genius. Because everyone knows, nothing turns a man sane like absolute power." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.