"It says a lot about where we're at as a country," Seth Meyers said on Monday's Late Night, "that in the last few days it was reported that a porn star was paid to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, and for 38 minutes people in Hawaii thought they were about to be hit with an incoming missile — and neither of those is the biggest story in the news right now." President Trump, by almost all accounts, used a vulgar word to dismiss immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa, but after initial shock at his calling those nations "shithole countries," we're now having "a pointless debate" over whether Trump really used the word "shithouse," Meyers said.
Whichever word Trump used, Meyers said, "what Trump's private comments reveal is that he doesn't actually want a merit-based system at all, he wants a system that takes in more white people and keeps out people of color."
On Monday's Daily Show, Trevor Noah was equally unimpressed that this argument somehow got "more stupid."
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He imagined everyone in Africa rejoicing: "We live in a shithouse not a shithole! Ah, Donald Trump. At least now we have a shitroof over our head!" Look, Noah said, Trump "having a poo-poo mouth is not the story for me. The president of the United States condemning whole groups of people as worthless and undesirable based on what country they happen to be born in, that's the story." The situation "reminds me of 'grab them by the pussy,' because the words are shocking at first, but then that's all some people end up focusing on," Noah said. Even if Trump had chosen a different word, "it's still him bragging about sexual assault, the same way writing off a whole continent as a shithouse or shithole is still the president being racist while negotiating immigration policy." Watch below for some additional thoughts on Trump's defenders and his own "least racist person" excuse. Peter Weber
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