After spending his first year as host of The Daily Show making nightly jokes about Donald Trump, Trevor Noah decided it was time to take a breath and speak from the heart Monday night.
“We spend a lot of time writing jokes on the show, thinking of the funniest way to share the news and talk to you,” Noah told his audience, “but honestly, for this segment, I just wanted to be straight-up.”
“I see people online, I see people on TV, I hear people in the streets talking about how they don’t feel like they want to vote,” he continued. “And I understand that. It’s not always exciting to vote. Some people go, ‘There’s no need to vote, Hillary’s up in the polls.’ Now if you are one of those people, I would urge you to reconsider.”
He pointed to the 20-point polling failure in the Michigan primary that preceded a Bernie Sanders win in that state, and the fact that Clinton is only up by the slimmest of margins in many of her so-called firewall states.
“This is not one of the times to rest,” Noah said. “And the most important reason I say that to you is because the people on Donald Trump’s side are really, really enthusiastic voters. He has the KKK voting for him. Like, if ever there was a reason to vote, it’s because on the other side the KKK sees an opportunity to come back into the mainstream. That is the scariest shit I have ever come across in my life.” The host allowed himself one joke when he added, “There’s no K in complacent.”
“Even if Hillary is a bad president, America has had bad presidents,” he added. “You can impeach a bad president. You can vote out a bad president. You have never had a Donald Trump. Nobody has had a Donald Trump.”
“So I urge you to go out and vote,” Noah told viewers. “Do not be in a situation where you lose your democracy before you appreciate it.”
