The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah had high hopes for Wednesday night’s Democratic primary debate on CNN, the “Mike Tyson’s face” to the previous night’s “small lower back tattoo,” as he put it. But ultimately, he walked away disappointed.
During his live show, Noah began by examining the lineup for the second of two debates this week, noting the “unlucky draw” for Joe Biden, with Cory Booker on one side and Kamala Harris on the other. “It’s like the world’s most racially charged Oreo,” he joked. “I feel like Joe Biden got on the stage and just instinctively tried to lock his car doors.”
And yet despite early fireworks between the frontrunners on health care, Noah was worried they got too lost in the weeds.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Can I be honest with you guys?” he asked. “This is the part of the debate where I think Democrats really need to get a whole lot better. No one at home can keep up with all of these numbers—$40 billion, 7 percent, 70 percent over 10 years, 30 trillion, 3 trillion when you compound it—it’s too complicated.”
“It almost made me miss Donald Trump,” Noah continued. “Because when he does math he just comes on stage like, ‘Folks, we’re going to do numbers. Best numbers, bigger numbers.’ And everyone at home is like, ‘Yeah numbers, I guess it’s numbers.’ You’ve got to find a middle ground.”
Of course, if there was one highlight of the night for the host it was when Booker went after Biden’s criminal justice record. “There’s a saying in my community,” Booker said at one point. “You’re dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't know the flavor.”
“Whoa! Yeah!” Noah exclaimed. “You know what’s cool about being black? You can make up phrases and white people don’t even know if it’s real.” He added, “Black people, we can just say whatever: ‘Man, you better watch yourself because right now you deep-frying a chicken but it ain’t got no skin.”
Noah ultimately ended the segment with a warning for Democrats. While everyone says they want to “beat Donald Trump,” he said, “Here is the honest truth: If the Democrats spend every single debate destroying each other, by the time you get to a one-on-one with Donald Trump, you will already have done his work for him.”
“Because you will get to the debates all discredited and he won’t have to do anything,” he said. “He’ll just come out and be like, ‘Guys, so many numbers, so many numbers.’”
