Trevor Noah shoots down Trump's arm-the-teachers proposal

Trevor Noah on Trump proposing to arm teachers

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

published 23 February 2018

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) entered the lion's den Wednesday night, attending a CNN town hall on school shootings. "Rubio tried his best to explain his positions, but you could tell he was totally out of sync with the rest of the room," Trevor Noah said on Thursday's Daily Show, playing Rubio getting cheers for saying you'd have to ban every semiautomatic rifle in America to make an assault weapons ban work. "That was such an epic fail — Rubio said the solution like it was the problem," Noah said. Town halls are usually a dud, but "these kids held Rubio's feet to the fire so hard that they got him to do something that most conservatives hate: evolve."

President Trump didn't attend the town hall, "but he did host his own listening session in the Mar-a-Lago of the north, the White House," Noah said, armed with a note card that reminded him "what emotions to feel," notably, empathy. "I feel bad for Donald Trump," he said. "Because you know that we never would have seen that note if he just had bigger hands." Then he laughed: "Seriously, the guy's a 'stable genius' but he can't remember to say 'I hear you'? It's a listening session!"

On Thursday, Trump proposed paying teachers "bonuses" to carry guns in class. "America really is a special place," Noah said. "For years, teachers have been asking for more pay and politicians have said they don't have enough money, but now the president's, like, 'If you're willing to cap some fools, we're gonna make it rain.'" He sighed: "There are so many practical issues with this plan that I don't even know where to begin, but honestly, it's not even worth going through them all. Because once you decide that Ms. Flenderson needs to be locked and loaded during English class, you're not trying to solve the problem anymore, you're admitting defeat." 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.