On Tuesday, as he’s wont to do, rather than try to mollify a calamitous situation, he made things worse. Last week, among nationwide protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, video spread across social media clearly showing Buffalo police shoving a septuagenarian to the ground, causing blood to pour out of his head. The two police involved were suspended, which angered their colleagues. It also angered the president, who, on Tuesday morning, tweeted out a baseless conspiracy theory alleging that the victim, 75-year-old Martin Gugino, may have been a member of Antifa.
The backlash to Trump’s tweet was quick and passionate, and Tuesday night late night hosts roundly took him to task. Perhaps the most passionate was The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, newly back after a two-week break and ready to wonder aloud what on earth is wrong with a sitting president parroting nonsense while trying to smear the name of an old-timer who’s still in the hospital.
“Trump is so desperate to defend the police that instead of admitting that maybe they used excessive force and that none of them helped a person who was bleeding out on the ground, he turns around and blames the old man from that video for being an antifa provocateur who busted his head open on purpose,” Noah said. “And I mean, I can’t believe I have to say it, but that is some bats*it crazy theory. Let me tell you something—if someone came up to me with a plan that involved busting my head open on the sidewalk, I would ask them to come up with a better plan.”
He continued:
“I mean, how do you look at that video, see that old man, and think that he’s an antifa provocateur? You think that old man is causing chaos. Who sees that? Like, I feel like Trump is the kind of person who watched the movie Up and he thinks it’s a story about an elderly terrorist who hijacks a balloon house.”
You can watch Noah’s full statement in the video above.
(Via Vanity Fair)
