Trevor Noah spent the bulk of his opening segment on Monday’s “The Daily Show” tackling Donald Trump’s baffling attempt to initiate a trade war with just about every other country in the world.
Noah began by noting that other Republicans have seemingly been leading the charge against what Trump is trying to do with tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and also how strange it is they have to protest on live TV to deliver their message to the president.
“Am I the only person who still thinks it’s weird that lawmakers have to go on TV just so they can speak directly to their president?” Noah said. “It’s only a matter of time before lobbyists start planting their agendas inside Happy Meals because they know Trump will find it. ‘Oh boy, it’s Coco the deregulating panda!’”
Later in the segment, Noah described how the problem with Trump’s proposed tariffs is not necessarily the tariffs themselves, but how retaliatory tariffs from other countries will escalate the situation. Reports on Monday said that the European Union, for example, would respond by issuing tariffs on bourbon and blue jeans, a tactic Noah thought was misguided.
“I think the European Union is going about this the wrong way. You’re not hurting Trump by threatening Jim Beam and Levi’s. Trump has never touched alcohol, and he doesn’t exactly have what we call ‘jeans ass,’” Noah joked as that infamous old photo of Trump playing tennis appeared on screen. Noah then conceded that Trump is probably actually right about the impact of China dumping steel into the U.S., before concluding the segment with this joke:
“He’s like a doctor who’s great at the diagnosis, terrible at the cure. ‘You have skin cancer, so I’m gonna chop off your d—,’” Noah said. “But like it or not, Trump is the doctor America chose. So it’s ultimately his call. So even if it’s bad policy, America could be headed for a trade war. Which, to be honest, of all the wars we thought Trump could get us into — I mean nuclear war, race war — a trade war is like the least bad option.”
You can view the segment, which includes a trailer for a new (fake, of course) “Call of Duty” game edited to make it about a trade war war, in the embedded video above.