News Satire Roundup: January 9th-January 12th

Monday, January 9 – The best part about the president of Ghana’s plagiarized inaugural address is that he cribbed from both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  Glad that Trevor brought up the “Hidden Fences” stuff from the Golden Globes, asking if three Black movies was really too much for white people to keep track of, and I liked his thoughts on Meryl Streep’s speech.  Good story on Trump’s latest lie/tweet, making bogus claims off the FBI and CIA’s reports about the Russian hacking.  Trevor’s biggest point – that most of the time, we won’t have a published report to hold up to Trump because the agencies will just tell him and he’ll tell us God knows what – was really well-made.  Susan Goldberg, editor-in-chief of National Geographic, was the guest, talking about their new issue on “The Gender Revolution.”  It sounded wonderful, and I liked her explanation of their decision to feature a transgender child on the cover.

Tuesday, January 10 – The buildup to Trump’s first press conference as president-elect was marked by Trevor’s own prediction of how Trump would hamfistedly refuse to answer questions and then act like he did, complete with Trevor in a Trump wig and daubs of orange paint and audience members standing in as journalists – funny and depressingly on the mark.  Roy had an amusing field piece on a gun-control activist whose big cause has been… getting Apple to remove the gun emoji.  The show has done plenty of really well-made, hard-hitting pieces on gun control, so they’ve earned themselves the good will to do more of a silly story on the subject.  The guest was former correspondent and awesome guy Aasif Mandvi, talking about A Series of Unfortunate Events (he’s Uncle Monty, and I’m so excited,) portrayals of Muslims in the media, and his thoughts about the impending inauguration.

Wednesday, January 11 – After a goofy Bond-style Goldshower theme song, Trevor held off briefly on the new Trump insanity to bask in the goodness of Obama’s farewell address.  Aaaand back toTrump.  I laughed at the “this puts everything into perspective” montage and appreciated Trevor’s repeated reminders that the Russian blackmail story is unverified, especially when he tied it to Trump’s own penchant for gleefully spreading unsubstantiated rumors.  More than anything, I related to the “how is this even real?” sentiment.  How did we end up with a president-elect for whom this story doesn’t seem unplausible?  Then, it was onto the joke of Trump’s press conference, with the underlying non-joke of Trump’s feelings toward the press, picking and choosing who gets to be considered “news.”  Author Jonathan Chait discussed his new book about Obama and the reactionary movement that’s occurred in the GOP in response.

Thursday, January 12 – I loved Trevor’s confusion at the “news alert” over Taco Bell’s new naked chicken chalupa.  More on Trump’s press conference, including his table of prop folders, his apparent contempt for the American people, and his continuing adventures in stifling the press.  Yay?  I always like Trevor’s Ben Carson impression, so the story on his confirmation hearing had some good stuff, especially Trevor’s comments about the “emotional roller coaster” of Carson’s incredibly slow sentences.  Still, I’d trade Carson jokes for having HUD in the hands of someone who seems like they’d know how to run it.  The guest was Cecile Richards, the head of Planned Parenthood.  I appreciated her statistics on how significantly access to reproductive health care has reduced the occurrence of unplanned pregnancies; Planned Parenthood does a lot, and very little thought has been put into how that could be matched without their presence.