With President Donald Trump out of the country last week, Trevor Noah decided to take a break as well. But now that the president is back, so is The Daily Show. And Noah spent a good chunk of his first show back recapping the foreign trip that Trump has declared a “home run.” Or as Noah called it, “National Buffoon’s European Invasion.”
By focusing only on Trump’s hands, the host said “we can learn everything we need to know” about how Trump’s trip went. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, Trump “hoped people would focus on his carefully crafted speech about Islam and terrorism, but, unfortunately, his mouth was soon overtaken by his hands.” Of course, Noah was referring to the glowing white orb Trump and fellow leaders simultaneously touched.
In a warning to young Muslims considering terrorism, Trump said, “Your life will be empty, your life will be brief, and your soul will be fully condemned.” In response, Noah joked, “I’m sorry, those were Trump’s wedding vows.”
Noah imagined Trump visiting Jerusalem’s Western Wall and saying, “You see this, folks? They build one wall two thousand years ago, zero Mexicans in their whole country!”
The host’s “favorite” part of Trump’s time in Israel was when he arrived there and said, “We just got back from the Middle East,” prompting an epic facepalm from Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer. “He’s like, ‘Do you know how much work I had to do just to get in this room? And this asshole didn’t even look at a map?!’”
“But it wasn’t long before Trump’s hands were once again dominating his trip,” Noah said. Because, instead of the media focusing on U.S.-Israel relations, all they wanted to talk about was “Donald-Melania relations.” Specifically, the moment the first lady swatted away her husband’s hand. But as Noah pointed out, Fox News’ Howard Kurtz reported that he didn’t quite see the “context of a slap.”
“Wow. Leave it to Fox News not to recognize what rejection from a woman looks like,” Noah joked.
“Luckily for Trump, the pope didn’t slap away his hand when they met, but he looked like he wanted to because, I mean, did you see the pope’s face?” the host asked, after moving on to Rome with the president. “I don’t want to be blasphemous, but in that moment it looked like even he was questioning whether there’s a God.”
And then there was Trump’s impromptu decision to shove aside the prime minister of Montenegro in order to get in front of a photo op of NATO leaders. “Who are you? Who does that? Are you serious?” Noah asked. “I mean, we shouldn’t be surprised, of course Trump would push the only world leader whose country has ‘negro’ right in the name.”
But perhaps most consequential of all, Noah said, was the “finger-wagging” Trump’s hands did when he castigated fellow NATO countries for not paying their fair share of defense dues. “In one day, Trump may have done what Russia’s been trying to do for 50 years,” he said. “And that is break the alliance between the United States and Europe, which would make it easier for Russia to extend its powers in places like the Ukraine.”
Despite all of this, Trump still thinks the trip was a smashing success. But on Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that now, Europe can no longer “count on others”—read: America—for support. Or as Noah put it, “Clearly Angela Merkel got one look at Trump and was like, all right, our fate is in our own hands because his clearly ruin everything they touch.”