Late Night Tackles Bad Tweeting
Trevor Noah is mostly impressed at how Fox News handled Roseanne's career-derailing racist tweet
After Roseanne Barr called Valerie Jarrett an ape-Muslim Brotherhood hybrid on Twitter Monday night, "many people applauded ABC for reacting swiftly and canceling Roseanne — although personally, I think ABC could do more," Trevor Noah said on Wednesday's Daily Show. "I think they should go one step further and reboot Family Matters with a super-woke Steve Urkel." But the move wasn't surprising, given the blatancy of the racism, he added. In fact, "even the anti-PC brigade agreed Roseanne had gone too far." The "brigade" was all stationed exclusively at Fox News, and there was much condemnation — Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters included.
"What was really fun was watching the people who tried to argue that Roseanne wasn't being racist, she was just sort of generally bad," Noah said, showing more Fox News. "It takes a lot of mental strength to say that calling a black woman an ape isn't racist. Not everyone can pull it off," though Herman Cain tried (on Fox Business).
Barr apologized on Twitter, eventually blaming her tweet on Ambien and Memorial Day. Ambien was having none of that, but Noah pretended to find the excuse plausible: "In Roseanne's defense, tweeting stuff that is racist while you're on Ambien, I do understand. Because if you listen carefully to their ads, there is a subtle warning about just this thing." He had the ad to prove it. Watch below. Peter Weber