Only one day after Last Week Tonight host John Oliver spent twenty minutes degrading and destroying Donald Trump, fellow news anchor-satirian Trevor Noah didn’t let the ball stop rolling. For the first segment of his show, Noah devoted the time to not debunking Trump like Oliver did, but suggesting a new title to follow Trump’s new name: fascist.
Noah stated the definition of fascism, which he sourced from a New York Times article, that claims it is “a cult of action, a celebration of aggressive masculinity, an intolerance of criticism, a fear of difference and outsiders…intense nationalism and resentment at national humiliation…” Noah then compared each of these traits to clips of Donald Trump exemplifying these very things. For “a fear of difference and outsiders,” Noah showed the moment when Trump called for a shutdown on all Muslims entering the United States. For “a celebration of aggressive masculinity,” there was Trump, shouting that he wished he could punch someone in the face. For “an intolerance of criticism,” Trump pointed to the pen of journalists in the back of his rally, and so on.
After rolling clip after clip demonstrating that the candidate may have strong fascist leanings, a montage Noah called “Fascist Week 2016,” Noah showed that Donald Trump–who is currently leading in the race to become the Republican nominee–retweeted a quote from Bernito Mussolini, who was once Italy’s dictator during World War II, close ally to Adolf Hitler, and is well-recognized as the father of fascism.
The quote reads, “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” Trump followed it with his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Noah conceded that it would be one thing if Trump had made an honest mistake, if he really hadn’t known who the source of the quote was.
Of course, Noah wouldn’t have had material for his show if that had been the case. Noah played a clip for his audience from Jake Tapper of CNN in which Trump is asked whether he regrets retweeting the quote, now that he knows that the source was a dictator.
“It’s okay to know it was Mussolini,” said Trump. “Mussolini is Mussolini. It’s a very good quote. I know who said it; what difference does it make?”
Tapper asked him if he wanted to be associated with a fascist, and Trump noticeably hesitated before saying, “no, I want to be associated with interesting quotes.” Noah, of course, did not hesitate to point that out.
“Take any phrase,” said Noah. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Responsive vibes, right? But did you know that that’s a Hitler quote? Well it’s not, but you see, for a second there, everyone in this room was like ‘oh no!'”
Noah also played a clip in which Trump announces that once he’s President, he’ll loosen the libel laws so that no journalist can ever write anything “false” or negative again–which, Noah says, is a key element of fascism.
But if this display of potential tyranny Noah unearthed during “Fascist Week 2016,” don’t worry. Trevor Noah says that everyone is welcome in his “back-up country,” South Africa.