Trevor Noah and Jordan Klepper disagree on the political and rhetorical damage from Trump's child-caging era

Trevor Noah does a postmortem on Trump child-separation policy

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

last updated 21 June 2018

President Trump's policy of separating families at the border "has rightfully outraged almost every decent human being, and Ted Cruz," Trevor Noah joked on Wednesday's Daily Show, "and now it looks like even the man who made the policy is tired of the backlash." Noah wasn't completely impressed with Trump's executive band-aid, nor was he completely surprised Trump caved, given the increasingly bad headlines. "Sweet Lord, 'tender age' shelters?" he asked. "That's a helluva fancy way to pronounce 'baby jail.'" The widespread outrage only grew after Corey Lewandowski "headed south of the decency border" with a comment about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome separated from her mother and caged, Noah said. "Yeah, he did just say 'womp womp,' which is funny because that's what he's going to hear in the afterlife. 'Wait, I'm in hell?' 'Yes, you are. Womp womp.'"

It's a relief that Trump might be ending this, but we're still left with the horror that "people were trying to defend this practice," Noah said. Still, Trump's defenders were "just dusting off xenophobia" from earlier eras. "Look, today's situation isn't the same but the excuses sure sound familiar," he explained. "In fact, they're as old as America itself — which, unfortunately, makes them too old to be locked up in a tender-age shelter."

At The Opposition, Jordan Klepper said Trump was being "too humble" in giving credit to Congress for his policy of "caging children as a bargaining tool for passing anti-immigrant laws," and argued that Lewandowski "wasn't being dismissive" when he said "womp womp" about the caged disabled girl, "those are just two of the 10 words he knows." Kobi Libii took it a step further, saying Lewandowski set "a new high" for political discourse. "Debaters have long known it's very hard to win an argument when you are on the pro-children-in-cages side," he said. "But this new mocking-noises tactic changes the game." Watch him and Klepper demonstrate 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.