Culture

Trevor Noah Compares President Trump’s Conflicting Responses To Puerto Rico And The Las Vegas Massacre

As has been covered earlier, late night television was not playing around with its response to the deadly attack in Las Vegas. Despite the early responses that mirrored many we’ve heard countless times after mass shootings in the past, hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers decided to ignore the calls to hold back their politics by directly criticizing those in the government for ignoring the gun control issues. Trevor Noah followed suit with The Daily Show‘s segment on the tragedy, but offered a take to his audience that hadn’t been addressed.

While CNN and other networks were quick to call Donald Trump’s response to the shootings an effective comment that the country needed to hear and “presidential,” Noah added his own observation to that. While he felt the president showed compassion and understanding to the victims in Las Vegas, he asks why Trump denied the same to the people in Puerto Rico.

“You’re speaking about people who’ve been shot, they’ve been gunned down. And you just go, just in this moment, let’s acknowledge their pain and suffering. And then Puerto Ricans, let’s talk about what they could’ve done…And that’s the irony of the whole situation for me is, people speak about mass shootings like they are natural disasters. People speak about it like there’s nothing you can do, it’s another one, another one hits, oh there’s nothing we can do…

There is something you can do.”

This followed a powerful segment where Noah gave his personal take on America’s relationship with guns and mass shootings, noting that he’s seen 20 in the two years that he’s lived in New York and the reaction continues to be the same:

“What’s been particularly heartbreaking, other than the lives lost, is how I feel like people are becoming more accustomed to this kind of news every single time. I almost know how it’s going to play out. We’re shocked, we’re sad, thoughts and prayers and then, almost on cue, people are going to come out saying, whatever you do, when speaking about the shooting, don’t talk about guns.”

He then asks when the time will be right to have the discussion about gun policies, responding to the calls to not get political in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. He counters this by highlighting the more immediate responses to other tragedies like plane crashes and notes that America is a country that always looks for something other than guns after events like we saw in Las Vegas, wrapping up with a simple apology:

“I’m sorry that we live in a world where there are people who will put a gun before your lives”

The House is still set to pass legislation easing the purchase of silencers and allowing gun owners from concealed carry states to legally carry in other states despite their laws.