Trevor Noah: 'An outbreak at the White House is not karma. It’s consequences'

Trevor Noah

Late-night hosts addressed the White House’s coronavirus outbreak after a whirlwind weekend of headlines, health updates and spin that was overwhelming even by Trump-era standards. “Turns out while you’ve spent the last seven months hugging your grandma through a giant condom, Trump and his friends are having no-mask cocktail receptions indoors where the guest of honor is Covid-19,” said Trevor Noah on The Daily Show.

At least 30 people in Trump’s circle have tested positive for the virus since last week, including aide Hope Hicks, adviser Kellyanne Conway, and personal assistant Nick Luna. “It’s almost as if the writers of 2020 didn’t know how to wrap the story up so then they were like ‘uh, and then they all get coronavirus, the end,’” Noah said.

For those who proclaimed that Trump’s infection was merely karma for downplaying a pandemic that has now killed more than 200,000 Americans, Noah offered a correction: “A massive outbreak at the White House is not karma. It’s consequences.”

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It’s bad enough that Trump’s White House flouted safety protocols before an outbreak, he continued, but “what’s even more disturbing is that after Trump found out that he could’ve been exposed to the virus, he didn’t quarantine. He didn’t social distance. He carried on with his life with complete disregard for other people’s lives.” Trump attended a fundraiser, sans mask, in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday evening despite knowing before leaving Washington that close aide Hicks had tested positive for the virus, a which is “truly despicable”, said Noah.

“Trump knew that he could be infected and he put his own supporters at risk anyway? I feel so bad for anyone who paid money to attend this fundraiser,” he added. “Because those people didn’t want Covid. They just wanted to give Trump enough money so that he’d let them dump chemicals in a river. Why should something bad happen to them?”

Stephen Colbert

Trump returned home from Walter Reed medical center on Monday evening with a photo op in which he removed his mask on the steps of the White House. “My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone he’s about to infect,” said Stephen Colbert.

“I’m glad the president is feeling better,” the Late Show host added, “and of course I wish him continued good health, and it goes without saying: what a tool.”

Upon leaving Walter Reed, Trump tweeted that he was “feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.”

“So you’re saying the people who lost their lives, they either didn’t have enough moxie,” Colbert retorted, “or they didn’t live in a White House that has 20 full-time medical staff and get choppered to a suite at Walter Reed, where they received a combination of cutting-edge treatments that literally no one else on the planet has received?”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers replayed footage from Trump’s widely condemned PR stunt on Sunday in which he demanded Secret Service agents drive him around Walter Reed in a hermetically sealed SUV to wave to admirers. The image of an infected president sealed inside a parade vehicle with as-yet-uninfected staff “captures all the heedless negligence and disregard for human life that has characterized the Trump administration and its response to the pandemic”, Meyers said. “He exposed Secret Service agents among others to a deadly virus just for a quick ego boost.

“So what prompted this reckless jaunt that put people in harm’s way?” Meyers wondered. According to the Washington Post, Trump told advisers on Sunday that he was bored of sitting in the hospital and tired of watching news coverage of his hospitalization. “Bored? Your hospital suite is basically a luxury apartment,” Meyers retorted. “That room and your top-of-the-line medical care probably cost more than the $750 you paid in taxes.”

The election, the White House outbreak at the Rose Garden party for Trump’s supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, the confusing timelines on Trump’s Covid diagnosis from his doctors – “in a way, it’s all one story,” said Meyers.

“That’s maybe the most bewildering fact of life in the Trump era: every day there’s a shocking new thing you could never have imagined in your wildest dreams, yet at the same time, every Trump story is basically the same Trump story: we can’t believe a word the president or his aides say. We have no idea what to believe.”

Jimmy Fallon

And on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon recapped Trump’s PR ride around Walter Reed, in which “the Secret Service had to take Trump around after 50 Uber XL drivers were like, ‘Hell no,’” he joked. “What is happening? Trump even turned a hospital stay into chaos. The Joker caused less problems when he visited Gotham General.”

The stunt coincided with reports that Don Jr was “deeply upset” by the ride-around and thought his father was “acting crazy”. “You know things have gone off the rails when Don Jr becomes the voice of reason,” Fallon said.

As for criticism of a photo the White House posted from Walter Reed to show Trump “working” by signing what appears to be a blank sheet of paper, Fallon joked it wasn’t all staged – “that’s not blank piece of paper, that’s just his entire plan to stop Covid.”