When a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about President Trump’s recent comments on police brutality to a group of Long Island officers during Monday’s press briefing, she responded, “I believe he was making a joke at the time.”
The “joke” in question was in regard to that classic image of police officers shielding detainees’ heads when placing them in the back of their cruisers. "When you see these thugs thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you see them thrown in, rough,” the president remarked to applause on Friday. “I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice.’ I said, ‘You can take the hand away.’”
After covering the portion of Trump’s speech that seemed to yearn for a Batman-esque fix to the country’s problems, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah moved on to the even “crazier” section in which he “talked about police brutality, and how there isn’t enough of it.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“We all know Donald Trump could not care less about police brutality,” Noah said, joking that it falls between “international diplomacy” and “Eric” on his list of presidential priorities.
As for the “joke” defense, Noah said, “Yeah, c’mon guys, don’t you understand? If you don’t like what Trump says, it’s a joke. If you do like it, then it’s policy. That’s how it works.”
“A lot of stuff he says makes people laugh,” he added. “But there’s a difference between being funny and making a joke.”
To prove his point, Noah played a montage of Trump insisting, “I don’t kid.”
“Ah, Donald, he’s just kidding,” Noah replied.
