Trevor Noah tries to wrap his head around the cavalcade of high-profile sex-crime scandals
Singer "R. Kelly may finally be facing justice — and it almost feels strange that they got him after all these years," Trevor Noah said on Monday's Daily Show. "It's like if Wile E. Coyote finally caught the Road Runner — who is also a criminal, by the way." But broke R. Kelly is not alone, and Noah cycled through several high-profile sex scandals. Next up? The Catholic Church, which just wrapped up a big global meeting on sex abuse.
"The pope has threatened abusive priests with 'the wrath of God' — that is the ultimate 'Just wait till your dad gets home,'" Noah said. But if that's all the pope's got, "it looks like the church isn't going to do enough to punish these sex criminals, which means we might need to get the government involved. The only problem is, the government has also got its hands full right now." A judge just ruled that 11 years ago, Labor Secretary Alex Acosta illegally "let a billionaire off the hook for abusing underage girls," he said. "And President Trump's response is, 'That seems like a long time ago.'"
And bizarrely, "this story is flying almost completely under the radar because there's another billionaire having a different sex scandal at the same time, also in Florida," Noah said. And as "insane" as it is that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft got busted allegedly "paying for sex in strip mall in Florida," remember, "investigators say that these women weren't willing sex workers, they were women who were from China, who were forced into sex slavery."
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"So this wasn't Pretty Woman," Noah said. "It's more like pretty horrific. Which is why these are very serious charges — unless you're a Patriots fan." He showed how this is playing in Boston. "Look, you can call it repulsive, you can call it insensitive for these people to just brush aside serious sex crimes like this," he said, "but you could also call it presidential." Some language is probably NSFW. 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.
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