As we’ve discovered over the past 31 weeks, when the going gets tough, Trump likes to throw a rally. And when Trump throws a rally, that tends to also mean throwing comedians a bone. The Trump’s recent Phoenix rally was no different, as Trevor Noah of The Daily Show parsed the President’s behavior in Arizona. “Although most of Trump’s rally was an outstanding rejection of sanity, there was a key issue that he had to address,” Noah quipped. “And that was demanding justice for the real victim of Charlottesville: himself.”
During the segment, titled “When Hairy Met Rally,” Noah called attention to Trump’s omission of his infamous “many sides” comment that left many viewers of his Charlottesville response wondering if Trump had just drawn moral equivalency between white supremacists and the people protesting racism. Noah showed side-by-side footage of Trump’s rally recap and the actual post-Charlottesville speech itself:
“While Trump was so furiously accusing the media of selectively reporting what he said, he was selectively reporting what he said. You can’t leave out ‘on many sides.’ That was the whole reason people were mad. That was it. Leaving out ‘on many sides’ erases the context of what happened. Like in any story, if you remove a crucial piece of information, of course the story will change.”
The example he offered up? Take out the candy manufacturing from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it becomes a story in which “Willy Wonka’s just a pedophile.”
Of course, we know the routine by now. Trump likes to throw these rallies to return him to the honeymoon phase of his candidacy, whip up support for 2020, and find succor after periods of intense criticism. However, the Phoenix rally has already been described as “unhinged,” “scary and disturbing,” and “a total eclipse of the facts.” So, any boost he received in his fan base may not work out in the long run.