Trevor Noah addresses Trump’s post-Grammys legal threats in a Netflix special

Trevor Noah addresses the elephant in the room in his latest Netflix special, Joy on the Plains.

Recorded at the Warner Theater in Washington, DC, the before The Daily Show the hostThe comedy set hit the streaming service on Tuesday. Noah talks about many topics about the state of the world, American politics, and social media, including the time Donald Trump threatened to sue him for his Epstein joke at the Grammys.

He says: “It’s different when you cross paths. I’m not going to lie, it’s really crazy.”

At the beginning of the set, Noah talks about hosting The Daily Show seven years, where he was meeting with Trump and his administration every week, and he actually thought the president would follow him at some point, which he didn’t. “Then I left The Daily Showand I relaxed like an idiot in a horror movie,” Noah said.

In February, while hosting the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, Noah announced the winner of Song of the Year Billie Eilish, and then introduced a joke that angered the president: “That’s the Grammy every singer wants the way Trump wants Greenland, which makes sense because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to get rid of Bill Clinton. (Trump and former US President Bill Clinton are known to be linked to a child sex scandal Jeffrey Epstein; both denied visiting Epstein’s private island, Little St. James, the center of his crimes).

Opening Joy on the PlainsNoah shows the audience what happened after the Grammys, when he flew to Boston, got thumbs up from his fellow passengers, and received many messages – all the while his phone was off.

“I turned on my phone and honestly, I thought the thing was not working properly, because it started shaking before the pictures came out,” he said. “Every app was going crazy: iMessage, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, even Uber Eats was like, ‘Yo, you got some hot shit coming in, man.’ I went to my messages, and everyone I’ve ever known in my life had sent me messages. Everyone. From kindergarten teachers onwards.”

Noah explains, of course, that he finally saw this text from Trump on his platform, Truth Social, which the president posted after the Grammys aired. Here, on stage, Noah is reading all of Public Truth’s posts to the audience “because I don’t want to misquote.” Yelling every time Trump capitalizes (which is common), Noah runs through all the quotes from “The Grammy Awards are WORSE, almost unwatchable!” to Trump’s denial that he “has never been to Epstein Island, and he has never come close.”

Watching Noah’s response to each of these lines is worth watching exclusively, including Trump’s statement: “The host, Trevor Noah, whoever he is, is almost as bad as Jimmy Kimmel at the Low Ratings Academy Awards.”

“You can’t say ‘host, Trevor Noah, whoever he is,’ because that’s what I happen to be,” Noah said. “I understand you were trying to fire me, but you’re saying my full name and my job title at night. You can’t be fired and be vague and vague at the same time. That’s not how that works. ‘Whoever you are’ – I’m not somebody else. There’s no consistency in this equation. That’s who I am.”

“It’s different when you cross paths.”

Yes, Noah mentions the fact that Trump threatened to “look like I’m going to send my lawyers” to sue the comedian for defamation, then concluded, “Get ready Noah, I’m going to have fun with you!” – a line that Noah catches because of its undeniably awesomeness.

“That last line is something: Get ready Noah, I’ll have fun with you! You know, if you’re not trying to sound like a sexual deviant, you’re not a line I’d recommend.”

Noah gets real at times, not sure how to react to the whole thing, and not knowing if he’s actually going to be sued by Trump or not (it depends on the week and the president, really). Trump has not filed a formal lawsuit in federal or state court.

“I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how I feel, because I don’t know how this is going to be done,” Noah said. “About him, there is no knowing.”

Trevor Noah: Happiness on the Plains now streaming on Netflix.