Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” suggested the fate of his program is uncertain if presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump wins the presidency and actually keeps his promises.
“If he goes through with everything that he says he would, I don’t think our show would continue to exist,” Noah told The Huffington Post on Thursday. “I mean, Donald Trump is the same person who said he wants to get rid of the libel laws.”
“Trump wants to be in a place where he wants to be able to sue reporters, or anyone really, for saying anything about him that he feels denigrates him in any way, even if it’s based in fact,” Noah added. “And that’s a dangerous place to be in.”
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In March, Trump said he’d like to “open up” libel laws so that he can sue media outlets that write unflattering articles about him.
“It’s so unfair,” Trump told the Washington Post editorial board. “I have [negative] stories [written about me], and you have no recourse; you have no recourse whatsoever, because the laws are really impotent.”
Noah expressed concern over what a president with that belief could do to free speech and satire in America.
“I don’t know how much he’ll follow through with it, but I also do not know whether I would like to be on the other side of it when he actually has the power,” the comedian said.
Legal experts have pointed out that the kind of revision to libel law that Trump seems to be suggesting would require upending a half-century of Supreme Court precedent. But stranger things have happened.
Others have said there’s little likelihood that Trump would keep his policy promises as president anyway. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who ran against Trump in the GOP primary, recently expressed doubt that Trump would really ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. or build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Noah recognizes Trump’s tendency to reverse course, noting that it was advantageous for him during the Republican primary race.
“Unlike the rest of these politicians, Trump has no relationship with truth whatsoever, so he has an advantage because he’s shameless,” Noah told HuffPost.
Nevertheless, Noah and his crew will be keeping a close eye on Trump during next week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
“The Daily Show” will be taping in Cleveland during the event while also hosting a three-part special for Snapchat, providing updates on Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service and broadcasting on SiriusXM’s Comedy Central Radio Channel. A pre-convention special, “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: The Road to ‘The Road,’” will air on July 18.
Noah said he’s excited to witness “the spectacle” of his first American presidential convention.
“[The Republican convention] may be a little too wild for me,” Noah said. “I’m hoping for the sake of people’s safety that it isn’t.”
You can watch “The Daily Show” weeknights at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims ― 1.6 billion members of an entire religion ― from entering the U.S.
