Late Night Tackles Trump and Race
Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon creatively point out the obvious conclusion from Trump's 'racist' tweets
President Trump spent the weekend on the attack, starting with an odd takedown of French wines and then an odder attack on his predecessor, Trevor Noah said on Monday's Daily Show. "He's seriously blaming President Obama for the temperature in the White House? You see, this is what happens when you run out of things to blame Obama for."
"Then on Saturday, he took his beefs to the next level," Noah said, recapping Trump's attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) and his majority-black Baltimore-area district, using language about "infestation" he tends to deploy only "when talking about people of color." And "you don't need to be a genius to see what Trump is implying, because he's not a subtle person," he added. "Like, if Trump was a painter, his art wouldn't need to be interpreted, it would just say, 'I'm Sad' in giant letters."
"Many people say Trump's words are clearly racist, but Trump says it's the black people who are the true racists, because they keep bringing up race every time someone says something racist — it's a little suspicious, you have to admit," Noah deadpanned. He teed up "Trevor Noah: Racism Detective" to determine: "Is Donald Trump racist?" It was a very short episode.
Yes, "another weekend, another racist outburst from our racist president," Seth Meyers sighed on Late Night. Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, "is doing his job by investigating Trump and trying to hold this administration accountable," but Trump "keeps coming back to this racist trope because he's a racist; it's the core of his ideology. ... It's obvious. It's not like you need to play clips of him backwards like a Beatles record to hear some sort of secret message admitting he's a racist." Though he tried that, too.
The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon used the advent of shark week to make a similar point, slightly gentler: "Every year there are about 80 unprovoked shark attacks. Yeah, 80 unprovoked attacks — or as President Trump calls that, a weekend. Actually, Trump loves shark week: It's the one time he can tweet 'I love great whites' without being called a racist." Watch below. Peter Weber