Trevor Noah Is at the Top of His Game in This Interview With Conservative Host Tomi Lahren

After more than a year at the helm of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah officially hit his stride last night when he absolutely owned an interview with noted millennial Trump supporter Tomi Lahren. For those who never have heard of her, Lahren, 24, is the host of Tomi from Glenn Beck’s website TheBlaze, and is most famous for her viral rants—the focus of which has ranged from the Black Lives Matter movement, which she has likened to the Ku Klux Klan; Beyoncé’s “Formation” Super Bowl halftime show, which Lahren said incited a “battle of the races”; and Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the national anthem: “It seems to me that blaming white people for all your problems might make you the racist,” Lahren quipped.

With all of this delightful context in mind, Noah went toe-to-toe with Lahren on each and every one of her flashpoints, managing a preternatural cool collectedness. Here, a few highlights:

On Trump’s “Pussygate” (as Noah called it): Lahren: “I’m comparing Trump to Hillary Clinton, not the Pope and not God . . . I don’t think what he said has an impact on his governance.”

Noah: “It may impact the way women are perceived and treated in a country.”

On Lahren’s support of Trump as a political outsider: Lahren: “You’ve got someone who’s not beholden to anyone in D.C.”

Noah: “Because he’s beholden to people in India and Russia and China, but carry on . . .”

When Lahren praised the president-elect’s temperament as “reasonable and levelheaded”: Noah: “Do you have Twitter?”

And, notably, when Lahren said she “lost respect” for Black Lives Matter when “their protesting turned into rioting and looting” and, she said, resulted in the deaths of police officers in Dallas. Noah: “You’re the same person who argued on your show that just because Donald Trump has supporters from the KKK. . . . Black Lives Matter has never said, ‘Go out and shoot people. . . .’. What if somebody said, ‘I felt emboldened by Tomi Lahren so I went out and shot black people’? Are you now responsible? Is that your platform?”

It’s worth nothing that the pair called each other out on Twitter this morning in shows of mutual support that highlighted the important of discourse—not shouting matches. As Lahren tweeted: “To my fans: Trevor Noah is not a douche or a jerk. To Trevor’s fans: I’m not a bitch or c*nt. We are people with opposing views. That’s it.”

Noah’s response:
“Thank you for being my guest, Tomi. Our goal should be to destroy these ‘bubbles,’ not each other. You’re always welcome on my show.”

Noah’s brilliant, informed, and quick-witted performance (and elegant handling of the entire situation) was, I daresay, reminiscent of Jon Stewart himself. Watch the whole interview here: