Monday, January 23 – I like that Trevor
opened on the Women’s March before circling back to Trump BS-ing about the size
of his inauguration crowd. On the
Women’s March, I cracked up at the joke about the Staples in Antarctica having
a banner day, and Desi’s field piece meeting marchers (and discussing their
ideals as well as their hats) was nice.
The inauguration had a field report, too, with Jordan trying and failing
to say that Trump is president now; plus, Trevor had some great jokes on
Trump’s defensiveness of his crowd size (the one about Black presidents
“obviously” having bigger crowds was my favorite). Kellyanne Conway’s unfortunate claim of
“alternative facts” led to a What the (Alternative) Fact from Desi, engaging in
some “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia”-level revision. Journalist Matt Taibbi talked about his new book,
Insane Clown President, and what journalism
needs to do to survive a Trump presidency.
Tuesday, January 24 – I loved Trevor’s
reaction to the jet-powered firefighters of Dubai, as well as his observation
that it’s a rich kid’s idea of a cool fire department rather than anything the
job actually needs. The show profiled
press secretary Sean Spicer, whose work consists mainly of trying to convince
people that the emperor’s wearing clothes.
After sharing a few more choice Newspeak sound bites, Trevor touched on
Spicer’s bizarre Twitter feud with Dippin’ Dots. Next up was a piece on newscasters reading Trump tweets, with Trevor making salient point about news outlets needing to
think more about how they read these
tweets on air. This, naturally, led to
the correspondents auditioning for the job; rage-filled Lewis was a no-brainer,
along with Hitler Jordan, but I also really liked cocky Hasan and
temper-tantrum Desi. The guest was
rapper Big Sean, talking about his new album and his outreach work in Flint.
Wednesday, January 25 – I liked the “send in the Feds” movie montage to demonstrate what likely went through Trump’s head in
thinking about Chicago. Good piece on
Trump’s recent executive orders. I
appreciated Trevor pointing out that some were meaningless (declaring his
inauguration a national day of patriotism) or toothless (he can call for the
wall, but Congress has to appropriate the funds first,) but at the same time,
he didn’t pull back from calling the Muslim ban what it was. Two guests, both of whom I liked, but I wish
there’d been more time for the news. I
loved the remarks from Scandal’s
Bellamy Young about how her character draws Hillary Clinton comparisons largely
because we don’t have a wealth of examples of women running for president. And author Heather Ann Thompson discussed her
book on the Attica riots and how the “official” narrative of that event has shaped
the prison system we have today.
Thursday, January 26 – Trevor was great
insisting that the U.K. can’t spur other countries toward nativism with Brexit
and then just back out. Excellent piece
on Trump’s first interview as president, focusing on Trump’s warped view of the
world, from his plan to send exorbitant money on an investigation into his
unfounded “certainty” about rampant voter fraud (which will most likely be used
to justify voter suppression) to his creepy assurance that “the world is a very
angry place” – the Joker parallel couldn’t have been more apt. The terrific night continued with a story on
Trump’s inauguration cake, an exact copy of Obama’s from 2013. On the reveal that it was mostly Styrofoam, I
loved Trevor declaring it a metaphor for the Trump presidency: looks shiny, is actually hollow, bad for the
environment. Guest Laurence Fishburne discussed
playing Nelson Mandela in his new miniseries while Trevor fanboyed harder than
he ever has before.
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