Kareem Rahma: Content Overload

Trevor Noah sits down with comedian and creator Kareem Rahma to talk about the strange reality of subway fame and the unexpected success of his hit series Keep the Meter Running and Subway Takes. From New York survival stories to strong opinions about culture, behavior, and city life, the conversation moves easily between the observational and the personal. Along the way, the two explore modern storytelling in an era of digital deception, and why people still respond to the power of a good story well told.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  The show's really about like how to be a better man. It's about fatherhood. It's about the American dream and it's about immigrants. It's really just about, it's an American story and it's awesome.

• 0:16Trevor Noah?

  It's a fully American story.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I want my nickname to be the Arab Patriot.

• 0:21Trevor Noah?

  Could just be the Patriot, but okay.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  There's a lot, that, that sounds like a movie with like John Krasinski shooting people in Saudi Arabia.

• 0:29Trevor Noah?

  This is true. It's crazy how John Krasinski has now been that guy, right?

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Cause he's buff now.

• 0:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but still, I'm just like, it's funny how like one minute, if, if you left the earth at like the peak of the office.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 0:43Trevor Noah?

  And then you came back now and you'd be like, Jim is shooting people now?

• 0:47Speaker 00

  That's the guy.

• 0:49Trevor Noah?

  It's such a.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  He might be in a movie called The Patriot.

• 0:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, maybe he is.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Mandela Effect?

• 0:54Trevor Noah?

  Could be, could be. The Arab Patriot.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  The Arab Patriot. Hmm. I don't really want to be called that.

• 1:07Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now with Trevor Noah. Earth can be a lot sometimes. Heat waves, gas prices, bad hair days. Why not go where life is good? Escape to Pluto TV. Turn off your problems and turn on your favorite movies and shows. You know, the ones you already love. From Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, to Dirty Dancing, to Top Gun Maverick, from Alias to The X-Files. It's all here and all free. Go where the TV is always good. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel.

• 1:52Trevor Noah?

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• 2:04Trevor Noah?

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• 2:47Trevor Noah?

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• 3:29Trevor Noah?

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• 3:55Speaker 00

  I think it is weird that I walk and eat. I don't think it's weird. I don't see that many people walking and eating.

• 4:00Trevor Noah?

  Nobody walks and eats anymore.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  I walk and eat all the time. I did it yesterday with a breakfast burrito.

• 4:05Trevor Noah?

  Nobody walks and eats anymore. Like a like a full on, do you

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Literal burrito.

• 4:11Trevor Noah?

  Two hand burrito or one hand burrito?

• 4:12Speaker 00

  One hand, baby.

• 4:13Trevor Noah?

  Cause if you eat two hand burrito even walking.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  You wouldn't catch me.

• 4:16Trevor Noah?

  You'd look like a crazy person.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  You can't catch me with two hands.

• 4:19Trevor Noah?

  Okay. One hand burrito walking.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Burrito walking.

• 4:21Trevor Noah?

  What what is it about your life that you are so um unable to sit down and eat?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  I I feel like I'm fairly busy at the moment. This is not like permanent.

• 4:31Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay. This is not like your vibe.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  No, it's not like always, but it's probably been for the past like three years.

• 4:36Trevor Noah?

  So if I see Kareem in the streets eating, I'm like, oh, things are going well for you.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. I just gotta keep the momentum going.

• 4:42Trevor Noah?

  Do you feel really busy right now?

• 4:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:44Trevor Noah?

  It seems like you're doing like a shit ton. I see you everywhere.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, thank you.

• 4:48Trevor Noah?

  You know, yeah, no, it's good. No, in a good in a good way.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  No, no, it's really good. It's well, that's what's happened. I I ran into a guy on the train today. And he was like, hey, you're the guy. And I'm like, yeah, I'm the guy. And he was like talking to me and uh and he talked about this. He's like, I see you everywhere. And he's like, I like watching your videos when I'm on the train. Which is really meta.

• 5:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Like he watches my videos on the train.

• 5:11Trevor Noah?

  Can you ride the train?

• 5:12Speaker 00

  I do ride the train and I always get stopped, but.

• 5:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because it's it's weird.

• 5:19Trevor Noah?

  Like, how long have you been in New York?

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Fifteen years.

• 5:21Trevor Noah?

  So I've only been in New York for what is what are we now? Ten, twenty six, ten, twenty, eleven, maybe?

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Which is pretty good.

• 5:28Trevor Noah?

  Eleven, twelve years. I always found like the subway had a simple rule and that rule was nobody looks at each other, nobody talks to each other. Nobody engages. You you know what I mean? It was like it's it's a simple staple of the subway. And then and then on my way here, I was thinking about this and I was like, man. It's weird to be a celebrity of the subway because then that means like the subway people know you as the guy that they should be engaging with.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  And they do.

• 5:53Trevor Noah?

  So people talk to you on the subway?

• 5:55Speaker 00

  They do. It's actually pretty awful, but I'm but I'm still not ready to like commit my life to Uber rides everywhere.

• 6:01Trevor Noah?

  No, no, city bike, my friend.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I do that.

• 6:03Trevor Noah?

  Join me on the bikes, my friend.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  I have my own e-bike.

• 6:07Trevor Noah?

  Oh, wow.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  And I'm ripping because I live in Brooklyn, but I work in Manhattan and I I take a forty minute ride every day.

• 6:13Trevor Noah?

  One of those.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I rip over.

• 6:14Trevor Noah?

  You have your own e-bike?

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that's sick.

• 6:16Trevor Noah?

  I've always wondered who those people are.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  That's me.

• 6:19Trevor Noah?

  And then and then. What what what is it? A Van Muff? What is it?

• 6:21Speaker 00

  No, it's called Avinton. It's pretty basic.

• 6:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  But um it's fast. And it gets me to and from work.

• 6:28Trevor Noah?

  Every day.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:29Trevor Noah?

  Is there a temperature that you don't ride at?

• 6:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, anytime it gets cold.

• 6:33Trevor Noah?

  What was cold?

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Today's good. Today I would do.

• 6:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  But anything colder than this, also if it was raining all day. Like if it was properly raining, I wouldn't do it.

• 6:42Trevor Noah?

  Proper pouring.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Then I would.

• 6:43Trevor Noah?

  I'm ten degrees Celsius. That's my cutoff.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Uh, which is like thirty five, forty?

• 6:48Trevor Noah?

  No, I think it's higher.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Six.

• 6:49Trevor Noah?

  Ten, ten is, yeah, ten's forties maybe.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  That's, that's reasonable.

• 6:54Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's like my cutoff. That's where I.

• 6:55Speaker 00

  So that's what you use.

• 6:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Do you take the train ever?

• 6:59Trevor Noah?

  Almost never.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Cause you would get stopped all the time.

• 7:01Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no. It's no one, no one bugs me on the subway.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Really?

• 7:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm not the subway guy. When you look at me, you don't see the subway guy. I see you, I see the subway guy.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  There's similarities.

• 7:10Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  There's, it's a little relevant.

• 7:12Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I see you and I'm like, he's the subway guy. He's just like. No, it's, what do you, I don't think it's awful at all. I think it's the greatest thing in the, you know, you know why? I, I, um, another thing I was, I was thinking, I was talking to a friend about this and I was like.

• 7:25Trevor Noah?

  It feels like. In, in the era that we live in now. Your videos are almost. A dying breed of internet content because. Let me, let me know if this makes sense to you. I feel like now people are making content. To. Get people to watch the content, but they're not making the content anymore. Does, does this make sense? So it's like, okay, let me, let me try and explain this. Like. When somebody made Game of Thrones.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 7:53Trevor Noah?

  They made Game of Thrones to, I assume, tell a good story.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 7:58Trevor Noah?

  And then the byproduct of the good stories that people read it or watch it.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 8:02Trevor Noah?

  That's the byproduct of telling a good story. But then I think some people with the internet now, they make content. To get people to watch the content so that they can just have more people, so they can make more content. But when you actually look at the content, you're like, what is this?

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:19Trevor Noah?

  Is this content that keeps you watching? So that they can keep on, but it's, it's not actually good.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  No, I, I, I, are we recording right now?

• 8:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Oh, amazing. I didn't even know we started.

• 8:30Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  I thought we were having a nice chat.

• 8:33Trevor Noah?

  Oh, and then we're gonna switch.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  I thought we were gonna be like.

• 8:35Trevor Noah?

  And action.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  I thought, okay, we, well.

• 8:37Trevor Noah?

  Well, Kareem, welcome to the show.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Let's see what I said, all of that other stuff. We'll, we'll figure out if I said anything bad. Um.

• 8:44Trevor Noah?

  You said the subway shit. I heard you, man.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  I still.

• 8:47Trevor Noah?

  You said people on the subway are trash.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  No, no, I remember what I said about.

• 8:50Trevor Noah?

  Keep the subway out of your mouth.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  To what you were saying, though, I was just drafting a little diary entry.

• 8:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  About how I think that people should stop making short form unscripted vertical video shows.

• 9:04Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  I think we're at peak saturation. And what I talked about in this little diary entry is, you know, when I started my shows, which is Keep the Meter Running and Subway Takes, I did it because I thought it was a great idea and that I would entertain myself doing that great idea.

• 9:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Virality literally was not even, it wasn't even the slightest sliver. I wasn't like, oh, this is going to go viral. This is a perfect, you know, equation. This is a genetically modified organism that will go viral. Like, it had nothing to do with that. And like you're saying, the outcome was virality, but it wasn't the intention. The intention was to make the best entertainment possible.

• 9:44Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  For the forum, which I use the most, which is a phone. So that's, I love the phone. I use the phone like it's television. I still watch television. I still watch movies, but I use the phone like it's a little television in my pocket. I wouldn't watch a TV show. That's, that's the thing. Like, when I see people on flights watching.

• 10:03Trevor Noah?

  Yo, man.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  A full TV show.

• 10:04Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you, those people, I, I would, if I could, I would have a list of their names and I would make sure that they never get hired in any serious position. If you get onto a flight and you plan to watch, I've seen people watch a full Marvel movie. Like, I'm talking like Avengers Infinity War on a tiny little five inch screen, but like serious. And then they clip it in front of them.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 10:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm like.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  They don't even clip it. Sometimes they just go like this.

• 10:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  They put it like this.

• 10:40Trevor Noah?

  You shouldn't be hired in any, like, serious position in life.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  But, but that's the thing is that I'm making entertainment for the flight.

• 10:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you're making it for the phone.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  I'm making it. That's what I'm saying. That's the difference, is that they're putting respect on my name.

• 10:53Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? And I think that is the big difference between. Going in with an intention of making the best work possible and entertaining yourself and hopefully entertaining other people. And the big problem, what gives it a bad name today, and I agree with it, is that so many people are jumping in with this mindset. The intention is, I'm gonna make a viral short form show.

• 11:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  It's not, I'm, I have this amazing idea, I need to get out of my body. It's, I want to go viral, I want to monetize. And I think the biggest perpetrators of all of this is not like independent people, independent comedians, independent whoever, because everyone's trying to like do something like, if you're a standup comedian, you start a show, the goal for you is to gain more exposure so you can sell more tickets to your live show.

• 11:39Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  There's a new crop of like little media companies that are popping up, and I have big problems with them because they have bad contracts, they take advantage of young people.

• 11:48Trevor Noah?

  Oh shit, I didn't even know this, this is a thing?

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, dude, half of the, half of the, the, the feed slop you see of like someone-

• 11:54Trevor Noah?

  No, are you serious?

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Of someone standing in the park, they look like they're just like a guy with an idea, but most of the time, those are shows funded by these new media companies that are-

• 12:06Trevor Noah?

  That explains it.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  Creating thirty of these.

• 12:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that explains it.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  And the whole goal is get big, keep it cheap, get big, don't worry about the quality, don't worry about the format, don't worry about the idea, just get the numbers up and monetize it. And, and the people that sign those contracts are usually in really bad deals because they get taken advantage of, they usually like hire young kids or college people or people just starting out in their careers. They don't own any of the IP, like the company will own the IP. It's just a whole different, and, and I really, I'm not saying this is like a curmudgeon, like, I'm like, oh, stop making shows.

• 12:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  I just want young people that do see my path as a viable path because it is, it's a great career, I'm so happy. Both of my shows have like changed my life. But they've changed my life because I like what I'm doing.

• 12:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  I own them. I own the IP. I own the shows. No one can tell me what to do. No one takes a cut of my money, with the exception of my managers, which is, you know, they do, they have a job.

• 13:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  But there's like, if I want to adapt Subway Takes into a TV show, if I want to adapt Keep the Meter Running into a movie, that's on me. Like, it's not another company that's controlling it. So I, I, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I do think also that the audience is kind of sick of seeing the same thing over and over and over. But when they see a Subway Takes, or they see a Keep the Meter Running, it's an original idea. It's not like at Washington Square Park.

• 13:27Trevor Noah?

  Right, right.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  Like the rest, they're, that's another thing I don't understand. Why are all the shows at Washington Square Park?

• 13:34Trevor Noah?

  You know what my favorite thing is about those? Is the fake, like, catch the person.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 13:39Trevor Noah?

  Oh, hey, would you mind telling me how, how much you earn?

• 13:43Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 13:43Trevor Noah?

  How much do you earn? About like twenty million dollars a year? What do you do? Well, I, I sell chicken feed and I, oh my God, how do we get into that business? And you're like, yo, you saw the person coming, you saw the thing set up. That's what I mean. It's like, it's, it starts to feel like everything is a, everything's fake. That's, that's what it feels like. But everything is, is trafficking in real. And this is, this is a take of mine that's a little extreme, but I genuinely believe it. I think every time the public comes into contact with fake things masquerading as real things, it undermines the very foundation that society is based on. Does that make sense?

• 14:24Speaker 00

  It does.

• 14:25Trevor Noah?

  Like, I, I feel like in society, we're supposed to trust that fake is fake and real is real, so that we, we can all have an agreement about what we should or shouldn't be thinking or experiencing or feeling. And I think it bleeds into politics. Like, if you go, if you watch a show where there's a husband and wife who prank each other, and you're like, oh, this is cool. They always prank. And then at some point, you're like, wait a minute, are they, are they setting this? The guy doesn't just walk into the room and the balloon falls on his head. This is. Oh, I think this is set up now.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:58Trevor Noah?

  Then you start going, I don't trust anything. And I've seen this happen to people in my life. I've seen this happen with me. People go, oh yeah, I don't know, I don't, because that thing was fake, so this thing's probably fake. And then you see like a police arrest and you're like, I don't know, this could be staged as well. And then you see like a couple fighting on the train and you see some shit go down somewhere else. And you're like, ah, it's probably one of those fake videos. And it's interesting, you you just start to, you start to build like a like a resistance to caring about anything that could possibly be happening. I don't know, maybe it's extreme, but you know.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  I I think that there is a necessary suspension of disbelief, which we do in fiction storytelling all the time.

• 15:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  And I do think that if it's like a harmless act, you know, like this prank stuff. Honestly, if it's entertaining, personally, I don't really care if it's real or fake, because it's it's it's entertainment. It's like reality television.

• 15:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  For years, we were like, is it real, is it fake? What is real? And we all know that it's like kind of scripted, like it's like you're gonna fight with this person, you know? But we've all accepted that that's okay, because it's kind of harmless and it's, you know, we're all engaging in the same story. Where it gets dangerous is when it is, uh, you know, inherently political or has some sort of covert operation or is, it makes you believe something that's not real, but it creates a real emotion, which is really dangerous. You know, that's pizza gate and that's all this other stuff that like can create a real world effect. So I think I think when it's like, I I at least for me,

• 16:30Speaker 00

  and I'm pretty media literate, so I can see something and and really sit and say like, damn, is this real? And like, look at the people's faces and be like, okay, it's it's staged. And sometimes it makes me like, it makes me, it makes me like it a little bit less. But generally, I'm like, it's okay, they're providing me some entertainment.

• 16:47Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  But that's just me. And maybe I'm like, have a more chill relationship with it. But with with my shows in particular, like, Like, for example, when I turn to someone, I say, so what's your take?

• 16:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  I already know who that person is. I don't necessarily know their take and I don't know what I'm gonna say at all.

• 17:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  But I know the person. And I've never tried to make it seem like I do know the person, although some people in the comments will be like, man, I wish when the show was random people. But it's this Bernstein bear effect. Are you, do you know about that effect?

• 17:18Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  The, so bear, it's like the Mandela effect, do you know that effect?

• 17:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  It's the same effect, where they're like, I miss when the show was normal people, like random strangers, but it was never random strangers. It was always me booking.

• 17:30Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's always been booked.

• 17:34Trevor Noah?

  So now people.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Since day one.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  But they go, I miss when it was bu, when it was random people.

• 17:39Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  I'm like, but I responded, it was never random people.

• 17:43Trevor Noah?

  Wait, but you, do you, do you think that that's people experiencing? The, what, what is a Bernstein bear, by the way? What is that?

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Because there's, so there's these cartoons called the Bernstein bears.

• 17:52Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  And for as long as.

• 17:54Trevor Noah?

  It's like a current cartoon?

• 17:55Speaker 00

  It's like when I was growing up.

• 17:56Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  And it's like about a family of bears.

• 17:58Trevor Noah?

  Hold, what are you, eighty six?

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Eighty, yeah, I'm eighty six years old.

• 18:01Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  I'm surprised you didn't say eighty five, pal.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Is that genuine laughter?

• 18:08Trevor Noah?

  No, that is.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Okay, that's a good.

• 18:09Trevor Noah?

  A joke, come on, I love that.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Where's the joke thing?

• 18:13Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Are we gonna have a laugh track in this one?

• 18:15Trevor Noah?

  But you were born in eighty six, right?

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Eighty six, yeah.

• 18:17Trevor Noah?

  Okay, cool, yeah. Now I'm just trying to figure out which cartoons. So Bernstein bears, what was the, what was this?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  So there, there, there is a entire, like, theory.

• 18:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  That it was spelt B E R N S T E I N.

• 18:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Bears.

• 18:33Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  And everyone's like, I remember it being the Bernstein bears.

• 18:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  But I, apparently, it's spelled B E R N S T A I N, something like that. I don't know if these are the exact words. But everyone has a collective amnesia. And like, you'll see all these Reddit threads that are like, I swear.

• 18:51Trevor Noah?

  There was a time when it was spelt differently, I promise you.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  And there's Reddit threads and there's people like, they switched them all out. People are like, it must have switched, you know?

• 19:01Speaker 00

  And that's what they have with my show. Also, what is the Mandela effect?

• 19:05Trevor Noah?

  So the Mandela effect was when, I think it was Nelson Freeman, wasn't it?

• 19:10Speaker 00

  No, Morgan Freeman.

• 19:12Trevor Noah?

  Morgan Freeman.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Played Nelson Mandela.

• 19:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Is that what it is?

• 19:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Morgan Freeman played Nelson Mandela, and then people were just like, that is Nelson Mandela. And then.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  No, I think it's, I think.

• 19:21Trevor Noah?

  Wasn't that it?

• 19:21Speaker 00

  I think it's something like they think that Morgan Freeman.

• 19:25Trevor Noah?

  Died.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Played a movie, played a role in a movie as, as Nelson Mandela, but the movie, there is no movie.

• 19:32Trevor Noah?

  There is no movie?

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Huh. It's also, there's, there's another guy.

• 19:37Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, Nelson, Morgan Freeman definitely played Nelson Mandela.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  Then we gotta figure out what the Mandela effect is.

• 19:42Trevor Noah?

  Can you guys check this for us? I'm pretty certain, I'm pretty certain Morgan Freeman played Nelson Mandela, because I think I remember him doing Nelson Mandela's accent. That's, that's the only reason I think this happened. I don't even know about the movie.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Well, what is the Mandela?

• 19:55Trevor Noah?

  But I, I, I generally track people who do Nelson Mandela's accent.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  No, this is a random thing. You're the co, you're like the, you're the guy.

• 20:05Trevor Noah?

  I promise you, it's just like a ren, I, if it, if it is this, then clearly it got me, and it's the most powerful effect.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Well, everyone fall.

• 20:13Trevor Noah?

  So what does the Mandela effect have to do with?

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Uh, okay. Um, reporting, so in relation to Nelson Mandela.

• 20:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Paranormal researcher, reported having vivid and detailed memories of news coverage.

• 20:27Trevor Noah?

  Of him dying?

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Anti-apartheid leader, President Nelson Mandela, dying in prison in a.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, yeah, I remember that.

• 20:34Trevor Noah?

  Wait, the Mandela effect is from him dying? Oh, I, I guess now the Mandela effect is people not knowing what the Mandela effect is. That's what the new Mandela effect is.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  It's, it's like a collective amnesia, where we all think this thing, or like a lot of people.

• 20:47Trevor Noah?

  Have an idea of something that did not happen.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  There's another one that's Sinbad. Do you remember Sinbad?

• 20:51Trevor Noah?

  That, the, the.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Where he played a genie.

• 20:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  There's no movie.

• 20:56Trevor Noah?

  That one I know of.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  But do you, do you remember the movie?

• 20:58Trevor Noah?

  No, I, I never had that, though. I always thought it was Shaq that played, um, the genie.

• 21:02Speaker 00

  Shaq did, he played one.

• 21:04Trevor Noah?

  Kazam, wasn't it?

• 21:05Speaker 00

  What was it? I think he was Shazam.

• 21:07Trevor Noah?

  Shazam.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  But he might have been, so Sinbad was supposed to be Shazam, and I think Shaquille O'Neal was Kazam.

• 21:13Trevor Noah?

  Kazam.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, but there's no Sinbad.

• 21:15Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  But anyways, people think that the show Subway Takes.

• 21:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Used to be.

• 21:21Trevor Noah?

  Random people on the subway.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:23Trevor Noah?

  And it was never random people on the subway.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  No. Because I set out to make a talk show.

• 21:27Trevor Noah?

  So wait, what do you think happened then?

• 21:29Speaker 00

  I think that some people like just they just have this weird memory.

• 21:33Trevor Noah?

  No, I'll tell you what I think happened. Can I?

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:37Trevor Noah?

  I'll pitch it at you. I think what happened was at some point, the algorithm decided to push your episodes in a certain way. And the episodes that people started seeing more of were the familiar faces. So now you were going Gwyneth Paltrow or Sterling K. Brown or and then people went because they didn't know the other people. You knew them when you booked them.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:03Trevor Noah?

  But because they didn't know the other people, they thought it was some random person from the subway. So they went, oh, this guy meets random people on the subway and says, what's your take?

• 22:11Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, right.

• 22:11Trevor Noah?

  Now it's a celebrity. I don't like the show. Why is Jason Bateman here?

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Well, and sometimes I clap back at those people and I say, you only get the celebrity episodes because you like watching celebrity content.

• 22:22Trevor Noah?

  Damn, you take it there.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  The algorithm gives you what you watch.

• 22:25Trevor Noah?

  You take it there.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  I like to clap back, but I am taking the, I have Twitter fingers and I'm, I've, I've given my privileges up. So now I'm not in the comments anymore.

• 22:33Trevor Noah?

  Wait, really?

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, man.

• 22:35Trevor Noah?

  What changed?

• 22:35Speaker 00

  I mean, do you get bullied on the internet or does everyone love you? I feel like everyone loves you.

• 22:39Trevor Noah?

  Well, okay. I have a, I have a controversial opinion on this. I do not necessarily believe that you can be bullied on the internet.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  Hundred percent disagree.

• 22:50Trevor Noah?

  Well, here we go.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  I've been bullied on the internet.

• 22:52Trevor Noah?

  I don't think you can be bullied on the internet. Okay, I'll tell you why. I think being bullied is something that does not offer an option. Okay, so when you are bullied physically, you are being bullied. You, you do not have an option to not be there. You do not have an option to opt out. You don't, there, there is no option. You are being bullied. Okay? When people say they're being bullied on the internet, I go, what you are doing is experiencing the people who do not like you on the internet. However, you are ignoring all the people who do like you on the internet. So you're saying that you are being bullied on the internet, but really you're just being tapped into everyone's brains. And people don't like Papa John's. So that means every day Papa John's is being bullied on the internet.

• 23:35Trevor Noah?

  People don't like United Airlines. Every day, United Airlines is being bullied.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  You can't bully a corporation.

• 23:40Trevor Noah?

  People, yeah, no, you see, you see, you see now?

• 23:42Speaker 00

  You can't bully a corporation.

• 23:43Trevor Noah?

  No, but what I mean is, what I mean is.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  You can be mean to it.

• 23:46Trevor Noah?

  What, what I mean is. The bullying itself for me requires like a power dynamic that I don't think exists on the internet. Right? So I do think kids like, let's say in school, I think kids can be bullied on like little text groups. Because they still go to the school and then like the kids make fun of them. And then so I do think you can be digitally bullied. I'm not saying you can't be, but when it comes to it's internet bullying, I realized there were two things that changed my life, genuinely changed my life. So when I first started hosting the Daily Show, people hated me, right? I mean, some people still hate me now, but this was like, just like a huge swath of people.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is.

• 24:23Trevor Noah?

  They were just like, why, why did you kill Jon Stewart and take his job? Then I was like, Jon Stewart is not dead. That's the Mandela effect, right? So I was now the host. People just every single day was just like, hate this guy, hate this guy, hate this guy, hate this guy. And then there was, there was like a few people who were particularly like hateful. And so one day I messaged one of the people, I DM'd one of them. And I said, hey, man, why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?

• 24:50Speaker 00

  This is fascinating.

• 24:51Trevor Noah?

  And this guy responded, it was the craziest tone shift was like, hey Trev, hey man. I don't hate you at all. I just saw everyone hating you and I thought it would be cool to jump on the bandwagon. I stood up, I was like, and I thought it would be cool to jump on the bandwagon. I actually think you're pretty funny, but I do think you're gonna fail at the job. So anyway, nothing personal. This is welcome to the internet. And then I went, wait, so you're just, you, you're part of this like mob coming after me and you don't actually care? And he was like, no, I, I jump onto any train and I'm gonna do this to somebody else and it's nothing personal at all.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  That's, that's, that's, well, that's one guy.

• 25:29Trevor Noah?

  And it was, it was a guy, he was in, he was in Canada, actually. And then I, um, I said in the DM, I said, so you really think I'm not gonna do well in this? He said, yeah, you're gonna fail. He said, in fact, I predict in six months you'll be canceled. And I said, okay, let's make a deal. I said, in six months, if my show's canceled. I will publicly tweet you and say, you were right, I shouldn't have done this show. And I said, and if the show is not canceled in six months, promise me that you'll be a fan of the show and you'll just watch always. And he was like, oh, easy deal, I'm in. And then we just like became Twitter friends afterwards because my show wasn't canceled. So that was the first one. It made me realize that half of the people who are quote unquote bullying you, don't realize that they're throwing one pebble at you and you're experiencing a boulder. All right.

• 26:12Trevor Noah?

  The second thing I realized was, I mean, a really simple one. I just went into my Twitter account and I said, disable uh offensive and mean comments. And I was like, wow, the internet's a much better place.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  They love me now. They love me.

• 26:30Trevor Noah?

  You just don't read the comments.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, no, that's what I don't read the comments.

• 26:33Trevor Noah?

  Or you fire back.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  I used to, well, no, I I was firing, I've been firing back for three years. Look, I'll say the majority of the comments are engaging in a productive and fun way. Because the show is, I call it the the stupidest show. No, I call it the most sophisticated show about the stupidest subjects.

• 26:51Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I like that.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  And people are engaging in a sophisticated manner about that. Only gay people should be allowed to have dogs in New York. And there are conversations happening, some people taking it seriously, some people taking it seriously, but as a bit.

• 27:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  Full on bit. And like, that's not a real, it's not a real thing. Like, there's no world in which only gay people.

• 27:17Trevor Noah?

  Right, right, right.

• 27:17Speaker 00

  Have dogs.

• 27:18Trevor Noah?

  But the but the take is is.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Well, it's hilarious.

• 27:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 27:22Speaker 00

  But but in the comments, somebody's like, okay, so for this to work, there needs to be blah, blah, blah. And then another person's like, okay, so if only gay people have dogs, let's say that's 1% of New Yorkers. That means this many dogs, so that would reduce the number of dogs by this much. And like, people are doing real analysis and research, and I love it because there's not really a place. I think in America at all.

• 27:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  To have a civilized, yet still kind of like rambunctious conversation. In the same way that it used to feel like you could get a bunch of people to have dinner. And they would, they would have slightly opposing beliefs. And you would have a good time and be like, man, I love that. Like, I loved dinner with so and so. Because he's insane, like, he's stupid, but I love the conversation. You know, you used to be able to have that conversation, at least I did. And now I feel like you can't have that. You're just like, this person is awful.

• 28:17Trevor Noah?

  Do you think you had a yearning for that coming from an Egyptian household?

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Dude, I stand in front of my TV with my arms crossed behind my back, watching CNN at 7:00 a.m. Like, I have the old school Arab dad mentality. And so when I used to see my dad, like, interacting with his friends, they were all so, they were all, they were all always arguing.

• 28:42Trevor Noah?

  Always.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yes, it was never a moment where they weren't.

• 28:45Trevor Noah?

  I'm so glad you said that. This is, this is a thing that I've been trying to explain to many of my, like, American friends who sort of have no, um, recent immigrant family. Everyone came here at some point, but they don't have any recent immigrant family. And I go, one of the national pastimes of most immigrant communities is arguing.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:07Trevor Noah?

  But, but like arguing for the sake of arguing, but like in a really, really fun. It's about football. Who's the best footballer? Who's the best team? Who's the best coach? And then it moves to like, but it's always benign, you know? Oh, where do you get the best hummus? Well, you, that's not hummus. You can't even count that place.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  But with a passion.

• 29:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, like a real passion.

• 29:25Trevor Noah?

  Arguing, you don't know food. We don't know food. And you get into this whole thing.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Talk for 24 hours.

• 29:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but like that thing, it's funny that you say that because I would say this to my, my friends, especially like my American friends. I'll go, I sometimes feel like Americans need to fight more seriously about things that are less serious. So that they can just enjoy the fight. Not every fight can be about like war in Iran. Like, this is, these are big fights, guys. This is too big.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  And it's exhausting.

• 29:51Trevor Noah?

  Healthcare, yo, that's a big fight.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:53Trevor Noah?

  Just fight about small things.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:55Trevor Noah?

  You know?

• 29:55Speaker 00

  I mean, every once in a while, I will just choose violence and.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Lob something into the group chat that I know is just gonna piss every like literally sitting last night on my couch and I said to my wife, I go, I think I'm going to start a little fight in the group chat. And she goes, about what? I was like, I'm not sure yet, but like, it's been awfully quiet.

• 30:14Trevor Noah?

  Is this a family group chat?

• 30:15Speaker 00

  No, no, this is just like my closest friend.

• 30:17Trevor Noah?

  Oh, just a group. Okay.

• 30:17Speaker 00

  They're mostly actually white and they would not know, not really. I mean, I do it all the time. I instigate a fight and then everyone does fight, but it's over text, but it's fine because it's still a good fight.

• 30:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  And then maybe one person will leave a little bit hurt, but it's like, it doesn't matter. It'll just be like, and, and I do, yeah, I miss that. I mean, I've, I've said before, like my favorite hangout is a dinner with like four to six people that are all smart, but maybe don't agree on everything and just having four hours of arguing.

• 30:48Trevor Noah?

  What did, what did you throw into the group chat? What did you say?

• 30:50Speaker 00

  I don't remember. I have to look. Oh, well, this was a recent one.

• 30:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  This isn't yesterday's because I think yesterday I got distracted and I, and she was like, don't do that. And I was like, okay. But one time somebody was choosing where we should go on a bachelor party.

• 31:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  And they chose what I thought was an awful place. And everyone else went, okay, yeah, sounds good. Like, great. And I go,

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Denver sucks. Why would we go to Denver?

• 31:15Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  And then they were like, you can't. And then they were like, you can't do this. Like, he's on the chat. And I'm like, the bachelor party is not for the bachelor. It's for us. It's for, it's for his friends. Also, as a good friend, I want him to have a memorable time of his life. And you guys are bad friends for letting him choose Denver. Also, who said the bachelor gets to choose? The bachelor doesn't get to choose. The bachelor gets to come, but his friends get to choose. And so I, I, I went as far as to write several emails. So it started in the group chat. It exploded.

• 31:46Trevor Noah?

  And then it moved into email.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  And then I moved into email because I wanted to write longer arguments with the help of, you know, editing software and, you know, be able to use grammarly and such and like make sure. So I would write these formal emails to the committee and say, I think this is a bad decision.

• 32:01Trevor Noah?

  And then where did you guys end up going?

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Denver.

• 32:03Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  I lost. I eventually, because somebody was like, you're starting to hurt his feel. Somebody was like, hey, he's really stressed. He's really stressed out and his feelings are starting to get hurt. And I was like, oh, yeah. And actually, we had a great time. I think it was right outside of Denver.

• 32:18Trevor Noah?

  I don't think you're wrong, though. Not about the Denver thing, but about, um, I don't think the bachelor is supposed to choose.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Right, I don't think.

• 32:23Trevor Noah?

  I think it's supposed to be the best man. Isn't that like the job of the best man is like your job is to plan the bachelor party and then who was the best man?

• 32:33Speaker 00

  This other guy who was going with the flow.

• 32:35Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's a failure.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  And the bachelor, the bachelor's excuse was he was like, I don't wanna like, I don't wanna like, uh, trouble you guys with traveling to like another country. I was like, dude, we are dying to go anywhere else. Like, let's not go to Denver.

• 32:48Trevor Noah?

  What time of year was it?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  It was a beautiful time of year. It was like May, I think, or June.

• 32:52Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:54Trevor Noah?

  But. Denver bachelor.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  You live, you learn.

• 32:55Trevor Noah?

  I mean, I like that as a, but you see, the, the, the, the more important thing to me is the fight.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, the fight was awesome.

• 33:01Trevor Noah?

  You've just gotta like, you've just gotta fight, man. You've gotta argue. You have to, that, that thing. I remember when I went, when I went to Egypt, um, I, I was lucky. So I, uh, we were in, um, we were in Qatar for the World Cup. And then there were like a few days where there were no games. And then my friends were like, let's just go to Egypt. We're, we're this close. We'll never, we'll never do it. Let's just fly. And it was like a few hours. We popped over to Egypt. And it really felt like, you know, those, um, those old like, uh, I don't even know what those movies were called, comedies, but there was like American Pie and those, it was like a road trip. Anything could happen.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:37Trevor Noah?

  It was like that. And we just went. And then we're like, we gotta go to the pyramids. And then we're in the pyramid.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:42Trevor Noah?

  And then we're like, is that a KFC next to the pyramid? And we're like, we're going to the KFC next to the pyramids. And then we, and then we're getting stopped by cops randomly in the middle of the night.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  For fun.

• 33:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. And they, they weren't like threatening or anything. They were just curious, I guess.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  To check out the ideas.

• 33:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just checking stuff. And then next thing you know, we're having dinner with random people that we've met, eating a meal at like 11 PM at night, midnight, you know what I mean? But like, but the one thing I discovered, wherever I went in, in Cairo, arguments.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, just yelling.

• 34:10Trevor Noah?

  Just great arguments. Everyone fighting about every single thing. At dinner, at lunch, in a hotel lobby, but in a like a, it made me feel like I was home.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, is that how it feels?

• 34:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Africans, come on, man. It doesn't matter where you are in Africa.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Grinding.

• 34:24Trevor Noah?

  Full on, full on. As soon as things get boring, you're hanging out with your Ghanaian friends or Nigerians. Just be like, who's got the best job off? And then we're on.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, just drop a little fight. Drop a little fight. Everyone needs it. I, I remember when I was like inviting a bunch of people to Cairo and I wrote, it was like an FAQ. And the last queue was, why is everyone yelling? And the answer, I, I, I like, I had a bunch of questions. It was, why is everyone yelling? And I said, we're not yelling. This is just how we talk.

• 34:52Trevor Noah?

  I like that.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  That's it. It's just loud, obnoxious, go like this a lot.

• 34:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, just get into it.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  And everyone, everyone does look like this.

• 35:00Trevor Noah?

  I, I will say that though, like the, the one difference I think between, well, maybe it's because I'm familiar with it. I feel like Africans look less angry when they're in the argument.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  They definitely do. They, they look, they, I mean, they're, yeah, they look less angry in general.

• 35:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Arabs for some reason do look, I'm Arab, I sometimes look in the mirror. I'm like, I look kinda angry. Not right now with this face, but like usually like if I'm.

• 35:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, they're, they're.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  And that's just my thinking face.

• 35:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's the face.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  It's not an angry face, but I'll, I'll sit at the computer and I'm like, and I'm like, oh, sorry. People might think.

• 35:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's, that's the face. And like a little bit more angry, a little more intense.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  It just has a little, yeah, there's a little intensity.

• 35:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. Whereas African arguments, they, they have like a big, sometimes you even struggle to know when the person is really angry or in like a joyful angry. Don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this.

• 35:49Trevor Noah?

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• 36:34Trevor Noah?

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• 37:18Trevor Noah?

  It's all here and all free. Go where the TV is always good. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. I think one of the things you realize when you start caring about clothes is that simple doesn't have to mean basic. Because a T-shirt is a T-shirt until you find the right T-shirt. Ooh, then suddenly you're talking about the cut, the fit, the weight, the way it falls on your body. Then you're like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Look at the sleeve. And that's what I've really enjoyed about Quince. One of my favorite things is their Pima Cotton Lux Touch T-shirts. And it's become one of those pieces I keep reaching for. The cotton has this really smooth, premium feel to it.

• 38:02Trevor Noah?

  The fit is great and it just lays really nicely. And I think that's what you sometimes take for granted with simple clothes. When they're done really well, they become the foundation of an entire outfit. You can throw on a jacket, a sweater, whatever you want, but everything works because you started with the right thing. That's what I like about Quince. It feels premium without feeling like you're trying too hard. It's effortless. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. Hello over there. Oh.

• 38:45Trevor Noah?

  And if Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was What Now with Trevor Noah. It's the best way to support the show.

• 39:00Trevor Noah?

  Before I forget, Subway, Subway hot, is it?

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Subway takes.

• 39:04Trevor Noah?

  It is Subway takes, right?

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:05Trevor Noah?

  You see, that's a Mandela effect. I thought it was like Subway hot takes.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  There's a lot of people that call us Subway hot takes.

• 39:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I don't know why.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  I don't know why either.

• 39:11Trevor Noah?

  I guess because we just think it's a hot take.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  It's always shocking to me.

• 39:14Trevor Noah?

  Why would that? That shouldn't be shocking.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Like, hey, Subway hot takes. I'm like, that's, that's me.

• 39:19Trevor Noah?

  So, yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  I think that makes sense. People also call me that.

• 39:21Trevor Noah?

  They call you Subway hot take.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  They just go, Subway takes. Or, this is my favorite one. You're the guy. I go, mhm. And that's it. That's the conversation.

• 39:29Trevor Noah?

  That's good, though.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  It's great.

• 39:30Trevor Noah?

  That's when you know you've made it.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  You're the guy.

• 39:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Do people do that to you?

• 39:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

  Or do they know your name?

• 39:35Trevor Noah?

  They will. So what will happen to me is, but I have to, I have to be careful. Sometimes people will say to me, hey, man, are you the guy? And then I, I used to go, which guy? And then they would be like, the guy from TV. And then I'd be like, oh, which show on TV? And then it would seem like I'm trying to like pull things out of them. So then at some point, I thought, let me just, let's expedite this conversation. Let's, let's get it going. They go, you the guy? And be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's me. And then they'd go, why did you leave CNN? I'm like, who, who do you think I am? And then some people would think, genuinely would think I'm Don Lemon. I've never seen the resemblance.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Oh, I don't see Don Lemon at all. I was gonna say, this is the first time that I've seen a resemblance, but I could see The Weeknd.

• 40:18Trevor Noah?

  So, I get The Weeknd.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Only time.

• 40:20Trevor Noah?

  I get The Weeknd in Europe all the time.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Oh, cool.

• 40:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  That's a good one to be.

• 40:23Trevor Noah?

  People will come up to me and then they will go, the craziest was in Stockholm. I was there at the exact same time that he was doing shows, I was doing shows. And in the streets, people, people were coming up, they were just like, hey, I'm so excited to come to your show tonight. So, and I was just like, yeah, man. I was like, damn, everyone's coming to my show.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  That's so funny.

• 40:46Trevor Noah?

  And then like, my show was sold out luckily. But then afterwards, I found out, oh, The Weeknd's in town.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  They thought you were Abel.

• 40:53Trevor Noah?

  They did.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  Good guy.

• 40:54Trevor Noah?

  They did. So, yeah. So The Weeknd, I get, um, and then sometimes from far, Bruno Mars.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  Like a tall one.

• 41:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, well, they don't know how tall Bruno Mars is. That's the thing I've learned.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  He's a short man.

• 41:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so people. No, Bruno, Bruno, no, Bruno's, Bruno's really short.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Mandela effect.

• 41:11Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I know Bruno Mars. Bruno Mars is a short man. But tall and like his vibe.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's a confident.

• 41:17Trevor Noah?

  Like you look up to Bruno when you're standing next to him, even though he's shorter than you.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  He radiates.

• 41:21Trevor Noah?

  But you're gonna do Subway hot takes in, uh, in Cairo, right?

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah. I mean, here's the thing about also about Cairo, which I love. I was born there and it feels like a home to me. There's not a ton of like amazing news. There's a lot of news. There's a lot of good news. You know, there's like, there's news.

• 41:40Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  But I was on a panel in Cairo and I just like lobbed it out and was like, would love to do it in Cairo. And then the next day there were four news articles.

• 41:51Trevor Noah?

  That said you're doing it in Cairo.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  Yes, it said next stop for Subway takes Cairo. And so now I am gonna go. Cause that is how I base a lot of my life is based on where people want me to go. So I was like, all right, they want me here. I'll go. I guess I'll go. But it was really funny. I was shocked the next day. It's like Kareem Rahma says next stop is Cairo. And I'm like, I'm going to Cairo.

• 42:12Trevor Noah?

  I mean, I feel like you should do it everywhere in the world. I've seen the ones you've done London.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  I've done London.

• 42:18Trevor Noah?

  So you've done the Tube.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  I've done Paris.

• 42:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you've done, I didn't know you did Paris.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Done Berlin.

• 42:22Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you see, I didn't know these things.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Chicago.

• 42:25Trevor Noah?

  Oh, this is great. You should do, you should literally do everywhere in the world.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  I want to, but some places like you, like you were saying, like Japan, I don't think they're gonna like me there because they.

• 42:34Trevor Noah?

  No, I don't. I think.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  Have a nice culture.

• 42:36Trevor Noah?

  No, I think you're wrong, actually. You know, you know.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  No, you're not like allowed to do anything.

• 42:39Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no. That, I don't, I think that's an unfair mischaracterization of like Japanese people.

• 42:47Trevor Noah?

  I think they're very, um, they're very aware of like another person's space. You know, they're very considerate. But when we were on, like, when I I've been to Japan multiple times with my friends. And when we're on the train talking, no one's like, shh, there's no, there's no, like, there's not, people aren't even looking at us like, why are you speaking? And obviously, we also consider it, so we're not speaking extra loud. I think you could do subway takes in Japan.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  So it's more of like a, like, they are policing themselves.

• 43:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  And you, and you would. They're not gonna judge you.

• 43:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I think it's the, because it's a cultural thing, like, the society's doing it. So you're the anomaly by talking slash whatever.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  They'll let this chaos agent on the train.

• 43:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I don't think you'd bring chaos. You'd just be a guy having a conversation in the corner.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  I know, but I might have big body language.

• 43:36Trevor Noah?

  No, you'd be fine.

• 43:37Speaker 00

  It'll be fine. Well, I do, I do wanna do Tokyo. I, I, I made a concerted effort because, um, every time I go to London, I get so much love. Like, it's crazy. I'm like, I'm like, I'm, I feel like I'm famous in London. You know that joke, like, I'm big, I'm big overseas? Like, that's a literal reality for London specifically. So I've, like, doubled down on my commitment to that city. So now I'm going every quarter to, to shoot episodes there. So now it's like, that is the second home of subway takes.

• 44:09Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful, man.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  But then, you know, selfishly, I also have not seen a ton of the world. I've seen a good amount of the world, but I would love to go back to To- Tokyo.

• 44:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Haven't been to, like, Brazil, like, Rio would be amazing. Um, there's so many places that I wanna go, even in the US.

• 44:25Trevor Noah?

  What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you in the subway trying to do one of your shows?

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Honestly, people are so nice.

• 44:30Trevor Noah?

  Nothing, nothing, nothing's ever happened?

• 44:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 44:33Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Literally, people are, I mean, no, that's, that's really good.

• 44:36Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I mean, it's good for, like, it's good for a life going in, in the right direction. It's bad for, like, not having.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  It's bad for that question.

• 44:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, for not having a story.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't have a story. I don't have a good, I mean, I guess one time, like, there was a little confusion as to who a person was that was filming us. So there was a, there was a guy on the train filming me.

• 44:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  With another guy, doing subway takes.

• 44:59Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  And then a more, like, a less stable person was also on the train.

• 45:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  And he saw that guy filming and for some reason got mad and slammed the phone out of that guy's hand. But then that guy thought that the guy, the slammer was my bodyguard.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  And that he was like, no, and he was like, dude, I'm so sorry. I didn't know we couldn't film. I didn't know it was a close set. I was like, I don't know that guy at all. And so there was a little bit of like Spider-Man meme. Yeah.

• 45:33Speaker 00

  That was probably the worst situation where I was like, wait, that guy's not with me. Is he with you? He's not with me. I was like, oh, and who was that guy? He's just to protect her.

• 45:40Trevor Noah?

  I love that kind of shit so much.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  And then he slammed the phone and then he kicked it all the way to the other side of the train.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  It was, it was, um. It was intense.

• 45:49Trevor Noah?

  Oh man, I love those moments. I just, I don't even, I don't even think I can explain to you how much I love those kinds of moments.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  You can see it in your head, right?

• 45:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because it's, it's, it's, to me, that's pure comedy. It's just like, it's, it's, it's written flawlessly. When it just happens in life.

• 46:02Speaker 00

  It was so good.

• 46:03Trevor Noah?

  It's like, you, do you know him? No, I don't know him. Who's the, but they, because he did the right action for a bodyguard.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  He was aggressive bodyguard though.

• 46:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but he still, it was the right action. Slapped the phone, kicked the phone away. This is what you would think. You'd just be like, yo, man, that Kareem guy, he always got aggressive bodyguards, but they do their job.

• 46:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. That's what happened. Yeah. So that's, that's the craziest thing that's happened. But I mean, the other thing about the show is it's amazing because it's, it is literally the best, like, and I don't want to call it networking, but like, I feel like I have friends. So many friends. Cause I go to London, I meet 25, 30 new people every single time I go. I go to Berlin, I meet 25, 30 people. Paris, like, and at this point, I still do all the booking. So like it's, I, I DM people, I find them, blah, blah, blah. And so I make, I feel like I have so many friends. You know what I mean?

• 46:52Trevor Noah?

  That's really great, actually.

• 46:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really, that's like one of the big, like, people are like, will you ever stop doing the show? And I'm like, inevitably, yes, of course, like everything must end. But I'm like, that's the thing that I'm gonna miss the most is like being able to meet 20 people in three days or whatever, like 20 cool people. Who are comedians or independent filmmakers or whatever. And it's almost like speed dating. You know what I mean?

• 47:13Trevor Noah?

  How do you, how do you pick them?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  It's like a vibes based situation.

• 47:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  It's not like really, it's not, uh, it's definitely not quantitative at all. So there's zero, I don't look at anyone's followers or numbers at all. That's a complete, doesn't matter at all.

• 47:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  What I try to do though, is I try to book people who feel like they deserve a platform.

• 47:38Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  And deserve, not deserve, but need like some exposure. Right? So, so I try to choose like independent comedians. I try to choose writers and, and, and, and authors and filmmakers and like, and then maybe people like some nonprofits, like I try to curate this list kind of in the same way that a magazine editor would edit a magazine. Like I looked at it like a magazine instead of like a page. So I, I try to choose people based on like, are they interesting? Do they have something to say? And then what are they working on? And can I be of service essentially? Because when I was starting out, like I would have wanted to be on Subway takes

• 48:19Speaker 00

  because it would have felt like I was doing Fallon or, you know, Conan or whatever. Like I was doing standup on one of those shows. And that, that's what it feels like to me is, is, is really important is like, are you working on something? Could you use additional exposure? And are you a cool, nice person really? Like, that's really what comes out.

• 48:38Trevor Noah?

  What happens when the celebrities come on? Is that them, is that inbound?

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, that, that one's just, that one, that one's also really difficult. Cause we get, I mean, we get a lot of inbound, like a ton.

• 48:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  And all of them have been inbound so far. And I've been not really trying to like book anyone or manifest anyone. Like everyone's like, who's your dream guest? And I keep saying Ben Affleck because it's just a good answer. Uh, and he is kind, you know, he is my dream guest. He's amazing. I think Ben Affleck's the best, but I haven't reached out to him yet. But, um, but choosing, cause, cause I try to keep the DNA of the show alive. So having one celebrity out of every like 15 to 20 guests is a very low ratio. And it really means, you know, 20 or 30 celebrities a year.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  And that one is just mostly based on like, who have I always wanted to meet?

• 49:26Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Like, if it's like, I try to do like icons, you know, we had the last interview with Jane Goodall, which is amazing, before she passed away. Um, obviously Ethan Hawke and Spike Lee and Jason Bateman, like, kind of like legends, you know, like living legends, or just people who I think are hilarious. But also, what's the definite, now I'm rambling, but like, who is a celebrity now? Like, like is Eric Andre a celebrity?

• 49:50Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, I, no, I think. What I mean is, I mean, people whose success was sort of defined before the internet era.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Okay, that's.

• 49:56Trevor Noah?

  Generally is what I mean.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Okay, good. That's exactly, I agree with that.

• 49:59Trevor Noah?

  Like, their fame came from movies or music, or it's like,

• 50:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm, I'm usually, I'm just like, who do I, who do I, like, I have an opportunity to meet my heroes.

• 50:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  So, let's pick them.

• 50:14Trevor Noah?

  Do you think you'll ever release the, the, the missing Kamala Harris one?

• 50:19Speaker 00

  I haven't. I'll show it to you if you want to come over.

• 50:23Trevor Noah?

  That's like, that's all I want to see.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Okay, I'll show you it. I have it on my phone. Watch, I get robbed after this.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  It's in the cloud, guys. It's in, it's securely protected in the cloud. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever release it. It just seems like it's unnecessary. I mean, I could release it.

• 50:42Trevor Noah?

  What, okay, wait, what do you mean by unnecessary?

• 50:44Speaker 00

  To release it?

• 50:45Trevor Noah?

  Cause now I'm like, whoa, how bad was this thing?

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Well, what's the point of releasing it? She's just a civilian.

• 50:50Trevor Noah?

  Is she though?

• 50:50Speaker 00

  I don't know. Just leave her alone.

• 50:52Trevor Noah?

  I don't think that's how it works. Wait.

• 50:54Speaker 00

  She ran and lost.

• 50:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, no, no, but I don't think that just makes you a civilian.

• 50:58Speaker 00

  She's a civilian now.

• 50:59Trevor Noah?

  Rocky lost the first movie. That didn't make him a civilian.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yes, it did.

• 51:02Trevor Noah?

  No, it didn't.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Yes, it did. If you lose, you're a civilian. Andrew Cuomo, civilian.

• 51:06Trevor Noah?

  No, you're a superstar now. It's like, it's a different thing.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  I, I, I guess it doesn't provide any value for.

• 51:11Trevor Noah?

  Because let's put it this way, if Kamala Harris shows up at like a rally or says, I'm doing a thing, people will show up. They, they won't be like, who's the civilian lady trying to mobilize people? Do you know what I mean?

• 51:22Speaker 00

  I know, but that's not newsworthy.

• 51:25Trevor Noah?

  No, I don't, I'm not even thinking about the newsworthiness of it. I just go. Look, on my side, I'm just, I'm just curious.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  I'll show you.

• 51:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay, cool.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  But does the American public need to watch it? Do they need to know?

• 51:36Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, that I, that I'm less, I'm less concerned about.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Some people have said that the, that the American public deserves to see it.

• 51:43Trevor Noah?

  That's an interesting one.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  There have been comments, there have been some comments from some people that are like.

• 51:48Trevor Noah?

  Because they go, you have this piece of information that sort of affects American politics and culture. And by not releasing this.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  That I'm technically.

• 51:57Trevor Noah?

  You are affecting.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm complicit in a cover up. That's the exact words.

• 52:02Trevor Noah?

  You are, that's my take.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  Don't.

• 52:04Trevor Noah?

  My take is you're, you're complicit in a cover up.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  I'm not.

• 52:07Trevor Noah?

  As a journalist, you have an obligation.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  I'm not a journalist.

• 52:10Trevor Noah?

  People call you that, you know that, right?

• 52:12Speaker 00

  And I always tell them I'm not.

• 52:13Trevor Noah?

  No, but I think it's crazy. Some people literally will be like, oh, the journalist, I, I don't know when this happened.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  About me?

• 52:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, but I don't know when this happened. But there, there's this weird thing that started happening in American news and culture where

• 52:27Trevor Noah?

  the people who were tasked with doing a certain job then started claiming other people had the job and then would judge them for not doing the job that they had given them, even though it was never their job. So I, I, it first started, you know, it, it became apparent to me when, when it was about comedians. I started seeing a lot of articles being written about comedians, myself included. But I would just be like, oh, why aren't more comedians speaking about the da, da, da? And I was just like, wait, wait, what is happening here? A journalist is asking why comedians are not speaking out about whatever issue they want them to speak out about. But I was like, but you are a journalist. You work for a large publication that is informing people. Why are you not writing about it?

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're writing about you not.

• 53:14Trevor Noah?

  They're writing about the person.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  Not writing about it.

• 53:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I was like, I, I, I don't know. And then, and then I started finding it. I, I remember someone complaining about like Mr. Beast Show. And was a journalist and they were saying Mr. Beast Show is a terrible, you know, it's like, it's the worst of America. Why does he not show the better sides of America? And why is he not trying to uplift the world? I was like, but what are you writing about? What are you? You are the, you are the publication.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 53:45Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 53:46Trevor Noah?

  And I, I've seen a few with you where people would be like, they try and put you in like journalist land because of the level of guest you're, you're getting on occasion. They'll be like, oh, but you should be like, how, how do you, how do you even think of that? How do you think of that quote unquote pressure in that way?

• 54:02Speaker 00

  I just respond honestly. I don't like you're doing yourself a disservice by saying this about yourself. Cause I'm literally just a jokester. I'm a clown. I don't even believe in what I'm saying, which is really true. Like if, if I actually 100% agreed or 100% disagreed with every opinion.

• 54:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  On the show.

• 54:22Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  I would probably be a maniac.

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Cause first of all, there's no such thing as 100% on either, on either.

• 54:29Trevor Noah?

  And that's what makes it good.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  And that's the joke.

• 54:31Trevor Noah?

  That's what makes it good.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  That is the point of the show. Yes, it is like here's.

• 54:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you have to 100% disagree, 100% agree.

• 54:37Speaker 00

  And half the time I've never thought about these things and will never think about them. And also forget about 100% agree or 100% disagree. What about, I literally don't care at all.

• 54:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  I just do not care. Whatever you just said, sometimes it doesn't even make sense. And then I just pick an option and let them explain it to me. And, and it's just, it's just funny cause, cause I did go to journalism school, which maybe is a reason that.

• 55:01Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, you did?

• 55:02Speaker 00

  I did.

• 55:02Trevor Noah?

  This guy's burying the lead here. This guy's a journalist.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  I chose it because.

• 55:05Trevor Noah?

  Yo, man, this guy's out here talking about another journalist. This guy's an actual journalist.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  I couldn't tell you one thing about journalism.

• 55:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you are qualified. Did you finish journalism school?

• 55:13Speaker 00

  I finished, but I, I.

• 55:14Trevor Noah?

  You are a journalist.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  No, but I, with an emphasis in advertising.

• 55:16Trevor Noah?

  If we were.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  And I only worked in advertising.

• 55:19Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry. Wait, what?

• 55:21Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 55:22Trevor Noah?

  You went to journalism school with an emphasis in advertising?

• 55:25Speaker 00

  Yes, because.

• 55:25Trevor Noah?

  What does that mean?

• 55:26Speaker 00

  The game, baby. I'm a head of the game. I've known for a long time that we are compromised as an, as an industry. And I said, you know, I'm going to get ahead of this and learn both the things. But journalism's.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Easy.

• 55:39Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, but let's go back.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  And I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna get fucking Chalamet over this. I just said journalism is easy. I take it back. I'm ducking directly to the camera. I take it back.

• 55:48Trevor Noah?

  You can't, you know, you can't take it back.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  Journalism is not easy. What I meant was it's an easy major in college.

• 55:53Trevor Noah?

  Okay, I'm just gonna let you know you can't take it back. Timothy Chalamet, he even said in his, when he said ballet and opera, and then he said, no shots at the ballet community and he tried to take it back. You can't take it back. You said journalism is easy and that's it, it's done.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Journalism.

• 56:07Trevor Noah?

  By the way, Timothy Chalamet, Timothy Chalamet wasn't wrong, by the way. I just don't think people like the flippancy with which he said the thing.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  They don't like the truth.

• 56:15Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I think it's, I think it's how the truth was delivered.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Also, I have worked in newsrooms. I know journalism is not easy. I know that journalism as a major is so easy.

• 56:23Trevor Noah?

  What makes it easy?

• 56:24Speaker 00

  It's easy compared to all the other majors.

• 56:28Trevor Noah?

  I never went to university, so I don't know like what.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  And you're a journalist. Look how easy it is.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  It's true, man. Look, the major is easy. It is. I don't know how I can describe it as easy, other than when I went to school and they were like, you have to choose a major. I was like, what is it? Like, I had a friend who was like studying to be an engineer. I had another friend who was studying to be a computer scientist. Another friend that was studying to be a fucking doctor and they were always studying.

• 56:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  And then I was like, I don't wanna be always studying. I wanna be hanging out. Like, where, what, how can I just hang out during college? That sounds way better than studying. And I asked a bunch of people and they were like, well, journalism is a pretty easy degree. And I said, great, I'll just do that. I didn't choose it because I'm passionate. I chose it because it was there. And I was a junior and I needed to pick a major to graduate from college. I did generals for two years. Generals are like when you don't have a major. So I spent two years just dabbling in.

• 57:19Trevor Noah?

  A little bit of everything.

• 57:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, a little American history, a little this, a little that.

• 57:23Trevor Noah?

  Where it got you.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, but none of this is related to school, honestly. I didn't learn a damn thing in school. I went because it was fun. I, I stand by that personally.

• 57:33Trevor Noah?

  I think most people should go to school not to learn something per se.

• 57:40Trevor Noah?

  But to experience the community and the vibe of all the people you wouldn't otherwise meet.

• 57:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:45Trevor Noah?

  I think schools is still like one of the few melting pots that exists. Well, I don't know if it'll if it'll be for a while with with how they're coming after it, but um. You know, I I genuinely think that I'm like, nah, just go to school. That's the only reason I would want everyone to go to university and stuff. Yeah, it's just you go meet people that you would, you know, it's their subway takes.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:05Trevor Noah?

  You meet twenty to thirty people that you would never know. Now you've got friends in Berlin, friends in London, you know?

• 58:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's it. Like, I worked at the New York Times. Maybe this is why people think I'm a journalist. I worked at Vice, I worked at the New York Times, but I wasn't a journalist at either.

• 58:18Trevor Noah?

  What were you doing there?

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Uh, I was behind the scenes. I was like doing content development, essentially what I do now for myself.

• 58:24Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Which is thinking of new formats and new video series ideas. And then I would give them to a journalist or some other entertainer, you know, and and then.

• 58:36Trevor Noah?

  Did any of them blow up or?

• 58:38Speaker 00

  Nothing like that I invented exploded now, but I was always like in the room. And and sometimes it was just based on like a small project. I remember I remember one time at the Times, we had this. It was like, I think it was like a four part series on ISIS or something. I think I can't recall. And they were like, how do we get more reach on this? Like, it's super expensive. We produced this thing, it took like seven months, like, what do we do? And I was like, I have an idea. Let's translate it into like five languages. And everyone was like, that's a really good idea. And so we did translate it into like Arabic, Spanish, I think Portuguese or French, whatever. And it did really well.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  I mean, it got five times the viewership that an English language video would get.

• 59:24Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Something as simple as that, that that was like, now we should do this for other videos that are um global news.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  Because it's global news. So it kind of makes sense.

• 59:38Trevor Noah?

  So, so you're working in these, um, I mean, these are, these are like institutions. I know Vice was the challenger brand. You know, but the New York Times is like, that's the New York Times. What, what makes you leave? And what, what gives you the gall, as they would say, the gall, my man? What gives you the gall to think that you can survive without the New York Times?

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  I had always want, when I moved to New York, I wanted to be like an entrepreneur. Like I came here in search of, I was like, when, when people went out west to search for gold.

• 1:00:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  I did the same. I was like, except I went east because I didn't know, I knew one guy in New York and I was like, that's enough to get started.

• 1:00:21Trevor Noah?

  Because you were growing up, you in the Midwest.

• 1:00:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I was in Minnesota.

• 1:00:23Trevor Noah?

  Minnesota, right.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  And, and I remember I was inspired to leave Minnesota because I went to Europe for the first time. I went to London. I went to Berlin. I went to Zurich randomly. And I went to Florence, Italy.

• 1:00:35Trevor Noah?

  Why did you go to Zurich?

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  I had like a, like a, my girlfriend, my ex-girlfriend's like brother-in-law, something, something, some random person was there.

• 1:00:43Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  So we went.

• 1:00:44Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  And I went on this like three-month trip, or maybe it was only two months. And I got back to America and I was like, I gotta get, I gotta get out of Minnesota. Shout out Minnesota. I love Minnesota. But that trip, I was just like, I don't belong in this kind of city. I belong in a big city. And so that's why I came to New York, but the intention was always to be like a businessman or an entrepreneur. That's why I didn't have any desire to be a journalist or a comedian or anything. I just want to be rich. So I came here to get rich and I immediately got poor. Poorer than I already was because I worked at Vice.

• 1:01:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  And, and Vice wasn't even intentional. Like I was just like, where should I work? And somebody was like, you should work at Vice. I go, cool. What is that? Didn't even know what media was. Didn't understand journalism had, and I even went to journalism school. But they put me in the advertising area where I was like, yeah, I get this part, like sell things.

• 1:01:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  You know, after I worked at Vice, which was like getting an MBA in media, I was with a hundred twenty five year old people. And I had zero friends. And then all of a sudden I had at least a hundred twenty five year old acquaintances, still not friends because they were mean to me because I was fresh off the boat from Minnesota. And then the Times called and they were like, I'd been working there for about two and a half years and the Times was like, hey, do you want to work here? And I was like,

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  will you pay me more? I didn't even care that it was the New York Times. I legitimately didn't care. I just go, will you pay me more money? And they go, yes, I said, I want this number. I'll tell you what the number was. It was a hundred thousand dollars.

• 1:02:24Trevor Noah?

  Like a clean.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  Clean.

• 1:02:25Trevor Noah?

  Six figures.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  I said, exactly. Not a penny more.

• 1:02:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  I said, give me a hundred K and I'll do it. And they go, okay. Called my mom. Guess what? I make six.

• 1:02:37Trevor Noah?

  Hey.

• 1:02:38Speaker 00

  She's like, wow, really? I'm like, yeah. Later find out that they had budgeted like a hundred and forty K for the role.

• 1:02:45Trevor Noah?

  Ah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  But I came in. My goal was to get a hundred K.

• 1:02:49Trevor Noah?

  Different six figures.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  But I was like, whatever, man. Like, I just need a hundred K, which I got. And so anyways, what gave me the gall to leave, gall, got gall to leave.

• 1:02:59Trevor Noah?

  The gall.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  The gall.

• 1:03:00Trevor Noah?

  The gall. That's how I know it. Maybe in America it's gal. I don't know.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  I just.

• 1:03:03Trevor Noah?

  The gall.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  The gall. I think it's the gall.

• 1:03:05Trevor Noah?

  Yes, the gall.

• 1:03:06Speaker 00

  The gall. I was, I was just, I felt like I was ready. I knew enough people. That's really what it was. The biggest thing is I knew enough people.

• 1:03:12Trevor Noah?

  But it's the opposite of chasing money, though.

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  Yes, but.

• 1:03:16Trevor Noah?

  Like, why would you leave the six figures to go and like make internet videos? Because it's not like the money was apparent.

• 1:03:25Speaker 00

  Well, there, there's still a time in between that where I set out to like start my own business, which I did. It was a media business. It was still in the same realm and that still was the goal was still to get rich. And I did not, again, so many times. There's also a whole history of this going back to when I was fourteen. This has been my number one priority in my life.

• 1:03:44Trevor Noah?

  Is to get rich.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Yes, until I turned thirty three.

• 1:03:48Trevor Noah?

  What did you start with at fourteen?

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Mowing lawns.

• 1:03:52Trevor Noah?

  Oh, very nice.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Trevor Noah?

  Very nice.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  I used to haul this big fucking lawnmower, like my dad would drive me around. I had one client.

• 1:03:59Trevor Noah?

  Wait, that's it?

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  And I got fired. And then I started over.

• 1:04:03Trevor Noah?

  How do you get fired from mowing lawn?

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  He just like, I don't need you anymore.

• 1:04:07Trevor Noah?

  What? How do you not need someone to mow your lawn? What happened here?

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  I don't know, man. I don't remember.

• 1:04:13Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  I cannot say. Without my lawyer here, I cannot say.

• 1:04:17Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, this one, this one.

• 1:04:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't know what happened, but I remember this old man, he was just like, yeah. I think I just did a bad job.

• 1:04:26Trevor Noah?

  At mowing lawn?

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Trevor Noah?

  That is like the simplest, most obvious thing. You push the machine.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:35Trevor Noah?

  It cuts the grass.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:36Trevor Noah?

  The job is done.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  It was a huge yard.

• 1:04:39Trevor Noah?

  E- even better.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  And I didn't have a driver's license.

• 1:04:42Trevor Noah?

  I don't think that, that there's no correlation between those two things.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  I think I was scheduling issue. It was a scheduling issue.

• 1:04:51Trevor Noah?

  So, okay, cutting grass, fired.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Fired.

• 1:04:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  And then McDonald's, and then telemarketer, and then mortgages.

• 1:04:58Trevor Noah?

  Telemarketer?

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  All of these things.

• 1:05:00Trevor Noah?

  What were you selling?

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Furnace and duct cleaning.

• 1:05:02Trevor Noah?

  Furnace and duct cleaning?

• 1:05:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Hello, this is Kareem with Home Place Furnace and Duct Cleaning. Do you have an average two thousand square foot home or less?

• 1:05:11Trevor Noah?

  I do not, Kareem.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna keep going.

• 1:05:14Trevor Noah?

  No, are you serious?

• 1:05:17Trevor Noah?

  And then what, and then what are you trying to?

• 1:05:18Speaker 00

  Well, how big is your house?

• 1:05:19Trevor Noah?

  So, okay, let's, I'll go twenty-two hundred square feet.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  Twenty-two hundred square feet?

• 1:05:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  Okay, so yeah, that's about average, that's about two thousand square feet. And have you had your furnace and duct cleaned before?

• 1:05:27Trevor Noah?

  I don't, I don't even know if my furnace and duct gets cleaned.

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  Well, you, you definitely need it. There's like all the bacteria and germs in your house, all the dead air, all the bacteria. Like, that's how things travel. You gotta get it cleaned so that the air that's circulating throughout your home is, is, is clean.

• 1:05:42Trevor Noah?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:05:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, hold on, let me get a quote for you.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Amanda?

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  Eighty dollars? Okay. So, uh, we can have someone out there for eighty, eighty dollars. Uh, how's, how's tomorrow looking for you?

• 1:05:55Trevor Noah?

  Damn, look at that. I've hung up on people like you all the time.

• 1:06:00Speaker 00

  It was so fun.

• 1:06:02Trevor Noah?

  As soon as the person like says, I'm from, gone.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  This is a different era, though.

• 1:06:06Trevor Noah?

  Oh, this was a different time?

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  Well, this was, it was kind of special.

• 1:06:09Trevor Noah?

  Knew, no one knew who was gonna call them.

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Cause, cause they were, now they're like kind of automated and they're, they're from other, they're from like, you know, they're outsourced. Now, I was like, I'm from Minnesota, sitting there reading a lowrider magazine. I'm in a room this big with ten other people my age who are all making ten dollars for every sale that they get. Plus our minimum.

• 1:06:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 00

  There was a leaderboard, it was kind of like Boiler Room, except really sad and depressing.

• 1:06:36Trevor Noah?

  I like this.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  Cause we were making like eighty extra dollars a week. But this guy Joe, close friend of mine, he was a killer.

• 1:06:42Trevor Noah?

  What did, what did he do differently?

• 1:06:43Speaker 00

  Dude, he was just so good, he was so cocky. And he treated it like a joke. And sometimes people would like beat me to him and then he'd just beat me right back. He was awesome. It's my good friend.

• 1:06:53Trevor Noah?

  And he was like the top of the leaderboard?

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was, and he was such a cool guy.

• 1:06:56Trevor Noah?

  Where's Joe now?

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  I don't want to talk about it.

• 1:07:00Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Trevor Noah?

  All right, we just move on.

• 1:07:01Speaker 00

  He got no bad, yeah.

• 1:07:03Trevor Noah?

  Oh, sorry, Joe.

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  He's an okay guy, he's a great guy. Um, anyways, all of these things happened and then, so, I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed. My whole life has been failures, really, I'm, I'm like not exaggerating, it's been hard.

• 1:07:16Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  And then at thirty-three, Jesus here, I was like, I have to stop. I just had this imposter syndrome, where I was like, I have to stop pretending I am a CEO or a businessman or an entrepreneur or that I know any of these things. Like, I have to stop trying to get rich quick. Because now I'm thirty-three and everything has failed and I need to try something new. And the thought of like emailing for a living for the next fifty years was really scary to me.

• 1:07:48Trevor Noah?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Especially because I wasn't good at it, like my emails are so bad. They're, I, I email like Jeffrey Epstein.

• 1:07:53Trevor Noah?

  That's probably why you lost the Denver argument. You switched to your weak side.

• 1:07:57Speaker 00

  No, no, cause that one I was using some assistance.

• 1:07:59Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 1:08:00Speaker 00

  I was using assistance on those because I needed to make a really good case.

• 1:08:03Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:08:03Speaker 00

  But my normal emails are really, when I saw Jeffrey Epstein's emails, I was a little concerned.

• 1:08:09Trevor Noah?

  They were terrible.

• 1:08:10Speaker 00

  That's how I type.

• 1:08:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it was like all lowercase.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  That's how I type.

• 1:08:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:08:15Speaker 00

  Like if you were like, hey, what time are you coming? I'd be like, soon. That's all I'd say.

• 1:08:21Speaker 00

  Did you find the place? No, send help.

• 1:08:24Trevor Noah?

  I have the opposite issue. My, my texting is too formal.

• 1:08:27Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:08:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, my younger brother always, he's like, yo, man, you need to like, you need to loosen up. I don't abbreviate anything. I don't like, thank you, you know, when people just write T Y?

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  That's what I do.

• 1:08:36Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  You write thank you.

• 1:08:37Trevor Noah?

  I write thank you.

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  Don't tell me to, don't tell me to do periods.

• 1:08:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I do, I do. I put periods in. Yeah, no, I do.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:08:43Trevor Noah?

  I put the, the, the, we call it a full stop, put a full stop where the full stop needs to be. I have double spacing after a full stop. Cause you can't just like put one space.

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  Journalist.

• 1:08:54Trevor Noah?

  No, because my mom, so when I was young, my mom ran her own like comp, like business from home. And she would type a lot. She was like in real estate and she'd type a lot. And then I would have to type things with her and help her.

• 1:09:07Speaker 00

  Oh, cool.

• 1:09:07Trevor Noah?

  So she would go through the work. So I would be like, to whom it may concern, dear sirs slash madam. I would like to inform you of an issue that has occurred. So I couldn't like, I couldn't be loose with things. I couldn't, you know what I mean? So when texting comes into my life, I'm already like well versed in the arts of, you know, formal conversation.

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  Do you sign off?

• 1:09:27Trevor Noah?

  I do.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  That's nice. I like that.

• 1:09:29Trevor Noah?

  I do genuinely, like I, I, like I.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  So you'll put dash Trevor?

• 1:09:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'll put like.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  That's cool.

• 1:09:36Trevor Noah?

  You know, like a little Trevor or T or Guards or, you know? And then I have to try not do that with people. One of my friends even said to me once, hey, I know that you know it's me, so stop using my name when you start the text, please.

• 1:09:52Trevor Noah?

  Cause I will do that. I will message you and I'll go, hey, Kareem. And then you'll go, yes, obviously it's me because it's my phone. Cause people will message me all the time and be like, yo, what are you doing this Friday? And I'm like, yoohoo.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yoohums.

• 1:10:06Trevor Noah?

  Yo, you're just gonna yo me?

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  I do that when I call people.

• 1:10:09Trevor Noah?

  You do what?

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  Like you would have my number and I'd go, yo, Trevor, it's Kareem. And you'd be like, I know.

• 1:10:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, no.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  I do that all the time and I love doing that.

• 1:10:15Trevor Noah?

  No, that's.

• 1:10:15Speaker 00

  I think it's so, no, cause it's fun.

• 1:10:17Trevor Noah?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:10:18Speaker 00

  Or, or, or, or they'll call me and I'd go, this is Kareem. And they'll be like, I called you.

• 1:10:23Trevor Noah?

  Oh, that's brilliant.

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Trevor Noah?

  No, you see, that's good.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  I like to establish that it's me.

• 1:10:27Trevor Noah?

  That's good. I like that.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  What if it's an imposter?

• 1:10:28Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no. I like that actually.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Trevor Noah?

  I like that, especially in the age of A I.

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  Exactly. You need to make sure that they know.

• 1:10:35Trevor Noah?

  No, no, you need to, you need to, you need to throw in a little spice.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Trevor Noah?

  Just to throw off the algorithm. I like this. I like this. Okay, so.

• 1:10:41Speaker 00

  So then I just, I was like, I can't, I love this like total just departure from what we were talking about. And then we both pick up exactly where we left off.

• 1:10:53Trevor Noah?

  Where we left off.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Which is at age thirty three.

• 1:10:55Trevor Noah?

  Failing at everything, no more CEO.

• 1:10:59Speaker 00

  And, and I was just like, I have to do something that I think I'm actually good at.

• 1:11:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  And like I was saying, I went to college to hang out and most of my life I've been extremely good at that. It's the best thing. It's the thing that I'm best at. It's the thing that I'm most comfortable with. I didn't play sports. I hung out. I didn't have any college clubs. I hung out. Everything in my life has been geared around hanging out.

• 1:11:24Trevor Noah?

  I like this.

• 1:11:25Speaker 00

  So I was like, what kind of job is a hangout?

• 1:11:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

  And I was like, comedians seem to be hanging out all the time. They're always hanging out, like their job is to hang out.

• 1:11:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  So I was like, maybe I'll do that. And so I went to Upright Citizens Brigade. And I, I always thought I was funny. I always felt funny. I always knew I could do it.

• 1:11:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  I always played at the top of my intelligence, even in these like conversations with my friends. It's always like how, you know, keep the joke elevated and play at the top of your intelligence. But I, I did comedy school because I just felt like I wanted to have something on my resume.

• 1:11:58Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  And that would provide some legitimacy that I could say like, I am a comedian or I could say that. I, I didn't, what I didn't want to do was like be like aspiring or I just started. So like, I just enrolled in school. I did all of the improv. I did all of the stand up. I did all of the sketch. I did all of the writing.

• 1:12:15Trevor Noah?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  I did, I did more than you're supposed to do probably, but I did all the classes. I spent a ton of money. And at the same time, I was like doing the things, like I was doing the training, but I was also like booking shows. I was going to shows. I was performing on shows and just getting a feel for what I really liked. And eventually.

• 1:12:37Speaker 00

  Like it's, I just, I've always been an internet kid, like from day one. It's, it's, it's been my favorite thing aside from hanging out. So then I was like, let me make some videos. And then from there, it was like figuring out, you know, what was like a repeatable thing. Because I remember I did get some notoriety for making the short film with my friend, New York Nico. We, I, we did this film together. It went to Tribeca. That was the first time I felt like, I was like, oh shit, I actually did like right away. It's my first big project and it was right away in Tribeca, right away with this great director. I was like, oh shit, maybe I am good at this. Like that was, that was the least amount of like, uh, convincing I've had to do.

• 1:13:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Speaker 00

  And I don't feel like an imposter at all. Like I wrote the movie. I was in the movie. I went to Tribeca. Like I didn't fake anything. Like it just worked. And that gave me my first little bit of, um, courage. And then right after that, I did keep the meter running and that thing just exploded immediately. It was so cool. And again, it came from this place of like emotional attachment to my father who passed away when I was 20. Right when I was in college.

• 1:13:51Trevor Noah?

  Because your dad was a, was a taxi driver, right?

• 1:13:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. My dad was a cabbie for like five years. So he was in the cabbie forever. But when he first moved to America, he was a cabbie. I didn't even know him as a cabbie.

• 1:13:59Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  But I found myself seeking out wisdom from whoever was driving me to point A to point B. And, and I think it's a very, it is, is a very common, uh, experience that you get in a car ride with a, with a cabbie. And they're like, almost like a Sherpa or a guru.

• 1:14:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:18Speaker 00

  Or a monk. They've always got like this thing. And I'm like, man, these guys have the secrets to the universe. Like how, how are they so chill? How are they not having road rage? Sometimes they have road rage. But like, you know, and, and talk about the. Talk about the like hanging out with an immigrant and talking about politics or anything. They don't stop talking.

• 1:14:36Trevor Noah?

  No, no, there's I've never met a single taxi driver anywhere in the world who has no opinion.

• 1:14:43Speaker 00

  No, I know.

• 1:14:43Trevor Noah?

  It just it just doesn't exist.

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44Trevor Noah?

  There's not none will be like, I don't have an opinion on that.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:14:47Trevor Noah?

  No, it's no, they will give you an opinion.

• 1:14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, about anything.

• 1:14:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 00

  How do you feel about Putin?

• 1:14:52Trevor Noah?

  It does not matter. They've got an opinion.

• 1:14:53Speaker 00

  It's and that's awesome.

• 1:14:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:55Speaker 00

  And so I did that show. I did the first 20 episodes, but it was so expensive to produce.

• 1:15:01Trevor Noah?

  So I I need to understand why, because I I've always read this, but I've never understood why it was so expensive. It it seemed like it was it was beautifully shot, beautifully made and all of that. But what made the show like so expensive to the point that you couldn't do it anymore?

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  Well, have you ever paid for a cabbie's meter when you tell him to take him, take me wherever you want?

• 1:15:22Trevor Noah?

  No, I've never done that.

• 1:15:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, well.

• 1:15:24Trevor Noah?

  How much was it? What would it get to?

• 1:15:26Speaker 00

  Oh, dude, it could easily get to 800.

• 1:15:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:15:29Speaker 00

  To 1200. I think I had a $1400 day once. Because we're just driving and we're taking our sweet time and they weren't ripping me off like it's not like.

• 1:15:39Trevor Noah?

  No, no, this is just that's the price of keeping the meats running.

• 1:15:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, because we would literally do these crazy things. Like one time I went from Manhattan to Queens, ate at this restaurant. Also, that was a big problem is I'd also cover the meal. And

• 1:15:52Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  I was covering the meal for me and the cabbie plus my crew.

• 1:15:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Plus over ordering a little bit for the video.

• 1:15:59Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay. So you make sure you get all the food in it.

• 1:16:02Speaker 00

  Multiple stops.

• 1:16:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Tip the restaurant because I'm like, like I show up with cameras.

• 1:16:06Trevor Noah?

  Because you've got a camera and you got a crew and you got a whole thing and yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:09Speaker 00

  So as as at that point, I had to experience zero success, but I was spending like I was HBO.

• 1:16:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Speaker 00

  I was like, baby, I'm a fucking movie producer. And it like like now I could probably self fund it and I'd be fine and it'd be like a loss and whatever. But it was like $2,000 an episode, which is crazy in most parts of the world. And also like not advisable as a person starting their career.

• 1:16:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, when you have no money.

• 1:16:35Speaker 00

  $2,000 every time I make something with no plan to recuperate, like to recoup.

• 1:16:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:41Speaker 00

  And but it was my favorite thing I've ever done in my life.

• 1:16:45Trevor Noah?

  But you're doing it again, aren't you?

• 1:16:46Speaker 00

  Yes, and now it is back 20 minute episodes. So the first the first iteration was six minute episodes.

• 1:16:52Trevor Noah?

  Got it.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  Now it's 20 minute episodes. They're on YouTube. And they're they're even bigger. They're bigger. They're bigger. They're better. They're crazier. And it's just like, I took the short form show.

• 1:17:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  And I went and I just turned it all the way up. So it's, you know, Russian Turkish bathhouse with Eugene and Boris, who's his friend that he just brought along for some reason. It's bowling with Norman. It's fishing. It's doing stand up comedy and recording a flute album.

• 1:17:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  With Kondra. It's it's salsa dancing with Homero. It's it's it's literally traveling the world without ever leaving the city.

• 1:17:33Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:17:34Speaker 00

  And that is magical. That's what's magical about New York. And it's also what's magical when you just tell someone, what do you want to do today? And just and you and I have zero input and I learned so many things every, you know, it's like, they're like fathers to me because they have all this fatherly advice. You know, as a man, you still want advice. Are your parents alive?

• 1:17:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Speaker 00

  And you probably call your dad and you're like, what do you think I should do in this situation?

• 1:18:00Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I call my mom, but okay.

• 1:18:04Speaker 00

  Because dad's like, bad advice?

• 1:18:07Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I think his, I think we're so different that the advice that he would give me is almost, it's just like from a random place, if that makes sense. Like my mom knows me so well and we are so similar in our in our personalities, not not in the way we act in the world, but we're so similar that when my mom says something, she can say it from like the place of knowing me. If I ask my dad for advice, he'll just say a thing from his point of view in the world and then I can process or not process that. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Your dad's like, who is this?

• 1:18:36Trevor Noah?

  No, my dad is very Swiss and very, you remember, Swiss German. So he's like, he's very precise.

• 1:18:41Speaker 00

  Trevor who?

• 1:18:42Trevor Noah?

  He's very, very precise, but he'll give me advice, like, be like, this is the thing. And that's how I see it. But but I'm like, ah, there's no like.

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  You need a you need a Balkan cabbie.

• 1:18:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, where's where's like the where's the you know what I mean?

• 1:18:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:19:00Trevor Noah?

  Where are the edges in this? Yeah, so on oh, wait, on your side, so you were very close with your dad, I'm assuming then?

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  I was like not close to him and I was close to him in the same in the way that I like to argue.

• 1:19:10Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  Like, he was an argue friend.

• 1:19:12Trevor Noah?

  Right, okay.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  But he was a great guy and I yeah, I was close with him, but like it wasn't like a lovey relationship. It was more like.

• 1:19:19Trevor Noah?

  Can it ever be with like a an Arabic dad from that time?

• 1:19:23Speaker 00

  From that time, no.

• 1:19:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because it feels like the it feels like there's a there's generational like chasms that we just have in society where even with most, I would say with most African kids, there's one generation where there's no such thing as being like lovey with your dad.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:19:38Trevor Noah?

  You know, I remember once, man, one of my favorite experiences ever was one of my cousins. We were walking out of the house and because it was just like, I don't even know what happened. And he was just like, we're leaving. And then he said, uh, he was like, I love you, Dad. And then his dad was like, oh, good luck.

• 1:19:59Trevor Noah?

  It's just like.

• 1:20:02Trevor Noah?

  And I'm in that one moment, I think we both we just like, yeah, what were you doing?

• 1:20:08Trevor Noah?

  What were you doing? It's it's so there's a.

• 1:20:10Speaker 00

  I came from that.

• 1:20:10Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? So like Middle Eastern, you know, Arabic dads, African dad, there's a generation where it was like, there's no such thing as being like lovey. With your dad, did they provide for you?

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:20:21Trevor Noah?

  Did you respect them? Did you do the things you were supposed to do? Are you ready to be the man of the house? Then you have a great relationship.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  I remember I was like 11 years old and I was like, Dad, I really want like a PlayStation. And he was like, that's for kids.

• 1:20:35Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:20:36Speaker 00

  I was like, dude, I am a kid. He was like, no, you're not.

• 1:20:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you're a living.

• 1:20:40Speaker 00

  This is when I was building building my lawnmower business.

• 1:20:44Speaker 00

  Uh, but yeah, it's it's it's like, and and I like that tough love sometimes because honestly, you know, I'll get in a cab and the guy's like, how are you? And I'm like, honestly, I'm not that good. And he's like, what's wrong? And I'm like that because that's how also that's the other thing about how cab cab rides start.

• 1:20:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Speaker 00

  So you get in, he says, how are you? Most of the time you go, I'm good. And you look at your phone and then it's over. But if you decide to say, honestly, I'm a little bad. My wife is like a little bored with me and she thinks I'm annoying.

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  That cabbie is about to give you a hell of a lot of romantic advice on how to fix your marriage. And it's good. It's actually good advice. But so I look at these guys like fathers, like there's a bunch of different, I have so many different fathers now. And they've kind of, and that is like the emotional engine of the show is that I'm meeting a dad. But it's not a setup. It's not like.

• 1:21:35Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I know what you mean.

• 1:21:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you know, you might see an internet show that's like, I don't have a dad, so I'm gonna find one in a cabbie. Yeah, just like the feeling of like that a Bourdain would just have when he goes into a city of like, I'm curious and I want some knowledge. And so that's what I do. And I just like, let whatever happens, happens. And yeah, it's my favorite thing in the world. Uh, and I'm so glad to be doing it again. And I'm so glad that, you know, that I hope people like it.

• 1:22:01Trevor Noah?

  Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus.

• 1:22:12Speaker 04

  My name is Sonny Cook. Ever since the accident. My mom looks different.

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  You think your mom has been swapped out with a different woman?

• 1:22:19Speaker 04

  I know something, okay? Something's wrong.

• 1:22:21Speaker 05

  I don't know what's going on with you, but I know that I'm your mother.

• 1:22:25Speaker 04

  If that's not your mom, why do you think she is? I don't know, but I need to find her.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  Watch the Hulu original series Phony, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:22:37Trevor Noah?

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• 1:23:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, one of my favorite YouTube Premium features is smart downloads. Because how many times have you gone somewhere and realized, ah, I forgot to download anything? And now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, download, download, download, download. You're on the plane, download, download, download, download. There's no wifi. I wish I downloaded. Now, all of those things that you were gonna watch. Or just on the internet. Smart downloads basically thinks ahead for you. It automatically downloads recommended videos based on what you like to watch. So even when you forget to prepare, YouTube Premium didn't. I love it. It's like packing for a trip and discovering somebody already remember the thing you always leave at home. It's always the underwear. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium.

• 1:24:07Trevor Noah?

  Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Therapy is one of those things lots of people talk themselves out of without even realizing it. Like it's too expensive or it's too overwhelming figuring out even where you're gonna start. But Rula is one way to make that first step feel a lot more doable, offering accessible, affordable therapy that fits your needs. Sign up in just a few minutes and get matched with a therapist who fits what you're looking for. Need to talk to someone quickly? Appointments are often available as soon as the next day. And with insurance, sessions average around a $15 copay. You can also see estimated costs upfront, so there's a lot more clarity going in.

• 1:24:50Trevor Noah?

  And in terms of outcomes, 93% of Rula patients report symptom improvement. If therapy's been sitting in the back of your mind, Rula is a pretty simple way to take that first step. So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com. That's R U L A dot com to find a therapist the easy way.

• 1:25:18Trevor Noah?

  I think one of my favorite things about the show, and I'm sure people will like it, is it's crazy to say this, but it reminded me to see people not only as you meet them, but like assuming that they are as you are. And what I mean by that is I definitely know that I've been guilty in my life of seeing some people in the way that I just see them when I meet them. So like the taxi driver, they'll just be like a taxi driver. Sometimes we'll connect because the guy's from an African country somewhere. Now we're talking about like Sadio Mane. Oh yeah, remember that World Cup and remember this thing in Africa Cup. And that's different. And now we sort of, but it's when you would meet a stranger. You confine them to the reality that you know them in, but you never think to yourself

• 1:26:03Trevor Noah?

  that they're bowling or recording albums, or you just go like, they're a taxi driver. And you're like, yeah, but what do they, what do they do for fun? Who do they love? What makes them laugh? How do they? And, and I, I don't know, man, I think especially when, when we live in a world where we're all being flattened, doesn't matter who we are, we are all being flattened down to one idea of ourselves and one idea of others. I do think it's beautiful to have an example of, of something that goes like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. The person happens to drive a taxi.

• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:26:37Trevor Noah?

  But this is who they are.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:26:39Trevor Noah?

  There's a difference.

• 1:26:40Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:26:41Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:26:41Speaker 00

  And it is, it's so, every time I'm just shocked at how like they're, they're, you know, even if they're not millennials and some of them are millennials, like, you know how, yeah, you're like, I have a podcast, I have a TV show, I'm a writer, I'm a this. And then they're also like that.

• 1:26:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they're exactly like that.

• 1:26:58Speaker 00

  But, but you know, I don't think we think in general of like, blue collar workers or people as like having multiple side hustles or like, they're, they're literally trying to get by just like we are.

• 1:27:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  And they have dreams, like Kakhandra, dude, this guy has written two memoirs that they're pretty fucking good. One of them is his own life story. He grew up in like a mountain village in Nepal with no shoes and had to beg to get his first pen from like a Swiss tourist who gave him it as a gift as a little boy. And now he has a memoir, he has another book of, um, like just stories about his passengers. So he's, he's interviewed 700 of his passengers.

• 1:27:41Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful, man.

• 1:27:42Speaker 00

  Dude, it's crazy. And he also plays the wooden flute and his dream is to do stand up. And all, I'm like, man, this guy's incredible. He's really incredible. And I had the best time with him, you know, I had so much fun and the episode turned out amazing and it's, you just forget. And then like Irish John, Irish John's incredible. Irish John has been a cabbie for 40 years. He's just retired now. He has a one man show called Off the Meter, which is about his 40 years driving a cab in New York City.

• 1:28:16Trevor Noah?

  That must be fascinating.

• 1:28:17Speaker 00

  So funny, so many funny stories.

• 1:28:22Speaker 00

  He was also involved in politics like he was, cause he was, he's Irish.

• 1:28:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:27Speaker 00

  So he was involved with like the IRA.

• 1:28:29Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:28:29Speaker 00

  During the period when that was happening.

• 1:28:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:33Speaker 00

  And he has all these stories about his involvement with IRA and just an amazing one man show, which is why when I heard the story that he has this one man show, I was like, let's make it a special and release it as part of keeping the meter running. And so we're like, produce this one man.

• 1:28:52Trevor Noah?

  I was literally about to ask you if you, if you, if you see any future where you're gonna help produce some of these ideas that you're bumping into with these people who wouldn't otherwise be able to have them produce.

• 1:29:00Speaker 00

  No, I think so. I mean, they've all, like, many of them have, yeah, whether, you know, I don't wanna do anything unless someone asks.

• 1:29:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:07Speaker 00

  This is not a charity.

• 1:29:08Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:29:08Speaker 00

  And I'm saying that because sometimes they're like, I don't need help. And I'm like, great. But if somebody says, I need help with money, I would help figure out a way with money.

• 1:29:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen you do GoFundMes.

• 1:29:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:22Speaker 00

  And then if somebody's like, hey, I want to produce this one man show, then I'm like, great, that, let's film it. Like, and let's film it because it deserves to be documented.

• 1:29:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:30Speaker 00

  You know, like, like, it, it's, it's, it's this little bite of the American dream, which I feel like I have been able to so far achieve. I feel like I've done it. I was born in Cairo. My parents are both immigrants and I feel like my dad did not achieve it. My mom didn't. I mean, and, and maybe they did achieve it through having a successful son.

• 1:29:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I would argue they did.

• 1:29:55Speaker 00

  You know, they never achieved theirs, but they did achieve a version of it, which is that I have, I'm able to do what I wanna do.

• 1:30:02Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:30:02Speaker 00

  And support my family and make a name for myself. And so if I can help other people achieve their, just a nugget, you know, just a bite of apple, that is more than enough for me. Like, that feels good, you know? And the show's really about like, yeah, it's about, it's about how to be a better man. It's about fatherhood. It's about the American dream and it's about immigrants. It's, it's really just about, it's an American story and it's awesome.

• 1:30:34Trevor Noah?

  It's a fully American story.

• 1:30:36Speaker 00

  I, I want my nickname to be the Arab Patriot.

• 1:30:41Trevor Noah?

  Could just be the Patriot, but okay.

• 1:30:44Speaker 00

  There's a lot, that's, that sounds like a movie with like John Krasinski shooting people in Saudi Arabia.

• 1:30:49Trevor Noah?

  This is true. It's crazy how John Krasinski has now been that guy, right?

• 1:30:52Speaker 00

  Cause he's buff now.

• 1:30:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but still, I'm just like, it's funny how it like, one minute, if, if you left the earth at like the peak of the office.

• 1:31:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:31:03Trevor Noah?

  And then you came back now and you'd be like, Jim is shooting people now?

• 1:31:07Speaker 00

  That's the guy.

• 1:31:09Trevor Noah?

  It's such a.

• 1:31:10Speaker 00

  He might be in a movie called The Patriot.

• 1:31:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, maybe he is.

• 1:31:13Speaker 00

  Mandela Effect.

• 1:31:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, could be, could be. The Arab Patriot.

• 1:31:16Speaker 00

  The Arab Patriot.

• 1:31:17Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 1:31:18Speaker 00

  I don't really wanna be called that.

• 1:31:22Speaker 00

  But I guess if I was gonna be a patriot, I'd wanna be the Arab Patriot.

• 1:31:28Trevor Noah?

  No, I like that.

• 1:31:28Speaker 00

  Just cause it's a little, it's also like a little, um, divisive.

• 1:31:33Trevor Noah?

  To.

• 1:31:33Speaker 00

  Oh. To the proper patriots.

• 1:31:35Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay, okay.

• 1:31:36Speaker 00

  I'm like, I love America.

• 1:31:37Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:31:38Speaker 00

  But I'm an Arab. And then they're like, damn, damn it. He does, doesn't he? He does love America and he is Arab. Fuck. Like, it doesn't work with their, their model of like, being a proud American.

• 1:31:50Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yeah, yeah. I mean. Could they have an idea of what the person is supposed to look like and be like?

• 1:31:55Speaker 00

  To be a proud American.

• 1:31:56Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:31:57Speaker 00

  Like, what if I am proud of the version of America that I'm working on?

• 1:32:00Trevor Noah?

  One of the biggest fights I got into, it was like a fun fight, but there was a, I was doing shows, I was on the road, this was many years ago. And, uh, one of the people in the audience said to me, said something, I made a joke about America. And this one guy was like, shut up, you can't, you know, don't make jokes about America. And I was like, why not? And they said, cause you're not American. And I said to him, I said, yeah, I said, in fact, I think I should, I have more right to make this joke. Because I've chosen America. I was like, you didn't choose it. It's like you, your mom just shut you out and then you're American. I chose this country. Can you say the same? And he was like, whoa.

• 1:32:41Trevor Noah?

  And I was, I was obviously joking with him, but I was like, but, but it was interesting because he said afterwards, and he wasn't an asshole at all. We were just having, we were having a good natured fight. And then the guy sits me afterwards, he's like, man, I never thought of it like that. He's like, I never thought to myself that these people are like choosing America. You know what I mean? They're choosing to make money in it. They're choosing to make something of themselves.

• 1:33:01Speaker 00

  Pay taxes.

• 1:33:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they're choosing America. And he's like, I never chose America. You know, and I even said to him, I was like, have you, what are you choosing it based on? Have you been to other places? You're saying it's the best, but have you gone somewhere else to, I've been to other places. And then I'll be like, yeah, and I'm choosing it. What now? You know, and the guy was like, whoa, and then, and we laughed and we had fun. Cause I, I find, that's, that's the biggest thing I find, going back to the bullying and the internet. I find like in real life, is, is people, yeah, I mean, people are a lot more, I don't know, this is, they're a lot more human.

• 1:33:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, that, but that's also a great example of the kind of, because you can, it's not even change minds, but you can like, have someone see a different way. Like he, he might not even have his mind changed. He might just be like, you've got a good point. And then that point, he thinks about that point for a while longer. And then maybe he sees other points or he sees immigrants in a different way. Like, maybe he's still a prick, maybe he's not.

• 1:33:59Trevor Noah?

  He wa, he wasn't even, to be honest, that's why I say like, he was, it was good natured heckling.

• 1:34:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:34:03Trevor Noah?

  I, I enjoyed it. It was a good, like, he wasn't being an asshole in any way. He was just like, we were going at it and it was fun.

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  That is fun, but I, I feel like some.

• 1:34:12Trevor Noah?

  But I don't think it would have been fun if it was on, on the internet. That's what I mean.

• 1:34:14Speaker 00

  Probably wouldn't because you can't read the tone.

• 1:34:16Trevor Noah?

  And there's other people, you know, so I, I find when you share a physical space with other human beings, you are less likely to think of them as other because you're sharing the same space already. We've both chosen to be in this comedy club. We've both chosen to engage in this moment. We've both chosen, we've both chosen, you, you, you get what I'm saying? And then inadvertently, you become more the same than you would have been otherwise.

• 1:34:39Speaker 00

  Which is why being around people is important.

• 1:34:43Trevor Noah?

  That's, I think, one of the things I love most about your work is.

• 1:34:48Trevor Noah?

  It, I don't know how to articulate this properly, but it's like, there are some things on the internet that do not feel like they're about people, even though they involve people. And then your show, like, okay, so let's say like subway takes.

• 1:35:06Trevor Noah?

  I'm, I'm pretty certain I'm not the only person who feels this. It makes me want to speak to people on the subway because I feel like they might have an opinion or an idea on the world. Right? The same thing with Keep the Meter Running. It made me want to talk to taxi drivers because I was like, I wonder what this person thinks. I wonder what that person, but, but, but it, it connects you to a side of humanity that I think a lot of the time the internet doesn't. A lot of the time, the internet, I feel, treats people as objects. You can do a thing to a person, you can play a prank on them, you can, you know, make them angry, you can scare them. But they themselves are just, you know, a device that gets you to your end goal. They aren't part of it.

• 1:35:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:35:46Trevor Noah?

  Does that make sense? And your work, for the most part, feels, yeah, they're props. But with you, I go, your work wouldn't survive without like the people in a good way.

• 1:35:56Speaker 00

  For sure. Yeah, I, I mean, it's, it's really, like, it's, it's about having fun, honestly, in the real world. Like, obviously, it's on video, but I am having fun.

• 1:36:08Trevor Noah?

  That's good, man. That's the best way.

• 1:36:10Speaker 00

  It's really amazing. And, and I, I am so like grateful and fortunate and happy and excited that I get to have fun. It's literally what I set out to do, like hang out, and now I'm hanging out full time for a living. And it just couldn't have gone any better. And I, I, I'm, I'm really lucky that, that people love the shows. Like I said, it was never about going viral, it was about, let me try to do what I think is cool and what I think is fun and what I think will work and hopefully people like it. But I remember before, so, so Keep the Meter Running went on hiatus and then I was like, okay, I need to find an idea while this is on pause to do, because I was like, I had this ambition of making a TV show and, you know, pitching and blah, blah, blah. And like, obviously Hollywood is.

• 1:36:57Speaker 00

  Not chill at the moment. So I hit up, it was like, went on hiatus and while I was on hiatus.

• 1:37:03Trevor Noah?

  Hollywood is not chill.

• 1:37:05Speaker 00

  I mean, I had a baby. I did my whole life changed and then eventually.

• 1:37:10Trevor Noah?

  Hollywood is not chill at the moment.

• 1:37:13Speaker 00

  It's really not.

• 1:37:16Speaker 00

  It's really not. That's why we're here.

• 1:37:18Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:37:21Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:37:23Trevor Noah?

  You know what's ironic though is is the machine is gonna come for you. Cause this is what I find happens all the time is people, people are rejected by the machine.

• 1:37:34Trevor Noah?

  Then there are some who beg the machine to welcome them in. Then there are others like yourself who go, I'm just gonna build my own machine. I'm just gonna do my own thing. And then because of the success of that, the machine goes, ah, Kareem. Yes, we've always believed in you.

• 1:37:53Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:37:53Trevor Noah?

  I've always been a big fan of your work, Kareem. Please, we'd love to produce this. We'd love it. We love it. Keep the meter running. Let's do it together. But instead of taxi drivers, private jets. Yes, yes. Instead of New York, we do it in Switzerland. Yes, Kareem, imagine this. Yes. And now it, you know what I mean? And then they they slowly take your idea and they just like twist it and and stretch it and warp. And then by the end of it, you're like, wait, this is this is not keep the meter running.

• 1:38:21Speaker 00

  And the pitches, there were like, um, is there, you know, could we make it a competition show? And I'm like, you want them to compete?

• 1:38:29Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you see.

• 1:38:30Speaker 00

  Squid games. You wanna do squid games? You want blue collar, working class people who I think are heroes, all of them. You want them to compete on television for what? Fuck off, man. Literally fuck off. And.

• 1:38:47Speaker 00

  It was all these things that I was just like, I can't find a home for this. I want to keep it pure. And I also think, you know, with the success of Subway Takes, the reason I like, I know this project is pure at heart because I could be doing literally anything and I'm choosing four years later to go back to where it all started and do the same thing that I was doing four years ago with no celebrities, no money, still in the cars, like still driving around. Like it's still hard work. I still don't have a place to piss. I still have no studio. They don't have a place to piss either. Uh, and, and it's just like, it's still gritty. Like it's, nothing's changed.

• 1:39:19Trevor Noah?

  It is what it was.

• 1:39:20Speaker 00

  Four years later. And the version for TV, uh, uh, and I'm, you know, I don't hate Hollywood. I love going to the movie theater still. I see movies. I see blockbusters. I see regular movies. I see indies. I watch TV. I think like the top of our conversation, there is a place for this.

• 1:39:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:37Speaker 00

  And there's a place for like, come over, watch a movie.

• 1:39:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 1:39:40Speaker 00

  And, and I, I wish they would like learn is really, you know, when you see someone like, like a teenager, like if you had a son and he was a teenager and like smoking weed and like skipping school, you'd like, you're doing bad things. You're hurting yourself. That's what I feel like about Hollywood is I feel like it's smoking weed. It's getting drunk. It's not doing what it's supposed to do. And I just want it to succeed, but they're not succeeding and that's okay. They can, they will, eventually somebody maybe will realize something or the industry will change or there will be new industries like there are every day, you know?

• 1:40:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. I, I think there are three things that I, I spend a lot of time trying to understand the failings of Hollywood. And there are three things that, that, that always stick out to me. One is, uh, what, what my manager said to me very, very long ago, when I was, when I was even like trying to go into Hollywood. I was, I was like, this is not my thing. I like stand up comedy. I still love stand up comedy more than anything. And one day I was like, why does it feel like everyone's making the same show or everyone's trying to do the same thing? And he said, you have to understand this about Hollywood. In Hollywood, everyone's in a mad dash to be second.

• 1:40:51Speaker 00

  That's so good.

• 1:40:52Trevor Noah?

  And so he said, you will spend all your time trying to convince people in Hollywood that something's a good idea. They won't see it. They won't accept it. But let it become big somewhere. You will see everyone now try to do it. So you look at a show like um The Office. Right? Before The Office, mockumentaries aren't really a thing in that way. You know, they they aren't like network television.

• 1:41:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're like niche.

• 1:41:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they are niche. The Office comes in, blows, and then you you literally now could not stop counting the shows that are mockumentary. You know, Pox and Rec, Modern Family, you name it. Like, everyone's like, do they look at the camera and with a quirky expression? Whoa, we'll take it. Everyone starts doing it.

• 1:41:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:41:33Trevor Noah?

  Right? You you go, oh, we'll make an old show with me. No, no, no. Game of Thrones? The period after Game of Thrones, where people were making old shows where, you know, it's like, I, my brother would never stand for this and will die for Valhalla. Everyone's making it. So that was the first thing that that.

• 1:41:52Speaker 00

  The race to be second is crazy.

• 1:41:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, everyone is in a mad dash to be second in Hollywood. So one Marvel movie will mean everyone's now gonna make them. Everyone's gonna make a superhero something. The second thing was told to me by somebody who works inside like the studios and stuff, and he said, do not take for granted how everyone in this business is just trying to not get fired. So they don't want to make the wrong choice. They don't want to do the wrong thing. They do whatever they think their boss thinks is right. They don't want to shake anything up because all they don't want to do is get fired. They're not trying to make the most beautiful thing, even if they want to, by the way. I'm not even like slamming them. But they are so afraid of

• 1:42:37Trevor Noah?

  losing the job that they just don't, they don't move. That was the second thing. And then the third one, I think, is more institutional. I think you can draw a direct line, like let's say just in the movie business. You can draw a direct line between the monopolization of movie theaters and studios with the decreasing quality of films that we get. All right. One of my favorite stories is the story of Back to the Future.

• 1:43:05Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:06Trevor Noah?

  Back to the Future is one of the most successful movies ever made, like box office wise. But that movie didn't start as number one, didn't didn't start as number two, didn't, you know what I mean? If you watch its its earnings at the box office, it does the opposite of every movie today. It starts here and then it slowly creeps up, creeps up, and it just keeps going up. And then when I was reading why, one of the big things was movie houses, like, you know, Cineplexes, were owned independently. And a lot of the people who owned them just loved movies. And they were like, what is this story? That looks interesting, we'll take it.

• 1:43:39Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:40Trevor Noah?

  And they just put it in. It was like a random shot in the dark. It wasn't part of a franchise, it wasn't part of a. And then word of mouth grew it and they had space in the cinema and they let it grow. And then it becomes one, now it's an obvious story.

• 1:43:53Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:43:54Trevor Noah?

  But look, just go to a cinema or look at it. When was the last time you saw them taking a chance in that way? They don't.

• 1:44:02Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:03Trevor Noah?

  But it's because it's all like part of the AMC chain and part of the Regal chain and part of the, you know what I mean? So I think when you, when you put those three things together, you see why Hollywood isn't exactly in a place to make. It's the antithesis of art.

• 1:44:17Speaker 00

  Right, total, totally. And it's, it's just, I'm, I'm like an optimist. You know what I mean? I go into life being like, eh eh, maybe, maybe that original vision won't come back. And maybe what's here now won't stay.

• 1:44:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:32Speaker 00

  But something will replace it. And it might be smaller, it might be different. I don't know what it's gonna be, but I, I see it happening now with, with so many people being like, well, I'm gonna do it myself. I'm gonna put it on YouTube, I'm just gonna grow my, like exactly what you're saying. I'm gonna build my own thing. And if, if, if Hollywood does come and knock in and says like, hey, we love this idea, what else you got? Do you have a competition show? I might go, yeah, I do have a competition show.

• 1:44:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:56Speaker 00

  It's not this one. Because it's not a competition show.

• 1:44:59Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:45:00Speaker 00

  But I might have one like it doesn't like I'm I'm like platform agnostic. You know what I mean?

• 1:45:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:45:05Speaker 00

  I think of it all as different audiences, different formats, different. There's different reasons like I I made a micro budget indie feature film that I wrote, produced and starred in, and it's now streaming on movie. Why? Because I just felt like I wanted to like I felt like that wasn't a thing that I wanted to do.

• 1:45:25Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I like that.

• 1:45:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a nice little film. It's like Walk and Talk. It was super low budget and I just was like, I want to make a movie. I want to like, I've never done that before. Like, let's make a movie.

• 1:45:33Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:45:34Speaker 00

  And so I figured out how to make a movie and it was awesome. And I would love to make another movie, but I don't want to write it because it's so much work. Writing is.

• 1:45:42Trevor Noah?

  You just want to hang.

• 1:45:43Speaker 00

  Dude, that is so true. Like, writing is not hanging out.

• 1:45:48Trevor Noah?

  No, it's not.

• 1:45:48Speaker 00

  Although I had a co writer Mary Neely, which made the whole thing a lot easier.

• 1:45:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:54Speaker 00

  Because you know how we wrote the movie? She'd come over, we'd hang out for a day. We'd write 10 pages and then we'd see each other again in like three weeks.

• 1:46:04Trevor Noah?

  Write another 10 pages?

• 1:46:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it but it was hanging out. I I forced it into becoming hanging out, but me writing alone, dude, I can barely.

• 1:46:14Trevor Noah?

  It's a terrible experience.

• 1:46:15Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't that's like you understand. I don't know how.

• 1:46:18Trevor Noah?

  No, it's a terrible experience. I I've never done that.

• 1:46:21Speaker 00

  But you write stand up jokes.

• 1:46:23Trevor Noah?

  And I write on I write on stage.

• 1:46:25Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:46:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I've almost never written anything. I've never written anything down.

• 1:46:29Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:46:30Trevor Noah?

  I've never I write on stage.

• 1:46:31Speaker 00

  You're a freestyler.

• 1:46:32Trevor Noah?

  No, I no, no, no. It's it's more that I I have ideas in my head.

• 1:46:36Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:36Trevor Noah?

  And then when I get to the stage, I go, all right, let's now. That's what the comedy club is for, is let's now see which ingredients work better or don't work. This word did not work. That sentence did not work. That idea worked. Let's move the sentence around. Let's move the words around. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. That's that's how I do it, but I don't. The only, it's not like a fancy thing. It's because my writing is too formal. So, once I start writing. Don't love me, cream.

• 1:47:05Speaker 00

  I'm just thinking of you writing stand up jokes.

• 1:47:07Trevor Noah?

  I've even tried, I've even tried like journaling. You know, when people go, you should journal. I get stuck in like the grammar. So like my journal will start, will be like, uh, uh, it'll be like journal entry. I'll put like the dates and then I'll go like. So, another day, another thought. Here we are. And then I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, you never, you don't think like this. But when I, when I start writing, my brain goes to like, well, this is how it should be. And there's a structure and the, so I can't, I can't write anything and be chill. When I was at the Daily Show, I developed a system where I would just like talk the things. And then we'd put that down. Because as soon as I got to like a keyboard. Nah, man.

• 1:47:44Speaker 00

  It was like you were working.

• 1:47:45Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:47:46Speaker 00

  UN correspondence.

• 1:47:47Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:47:48Speaker 00

  You know, have you, have you ever read The Artist's Way?

• 1:47:51Trevor Noah?

  The Artist's Way?

• 1:47:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's this pretty good book and it has like a series of workshops in it.

• 1:47:56Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:47:57Speaker 00

  And one of the things that might be helpful for you is that they're like, write these pages. Every morning, three pages of whatever you want. It doesn't have to be jokes.

• 1:48:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:05Speaker 00

  It doesn't have to be diary. It doesn't have to be anything. You could just write the same word.

• 1:48:08Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:48:10Speaker 00

  And then throw it away. And it, it is, it's supposed to help you get away from. I, I don't know if everyone has that problem, but it's supposed to get you away from the idea that writing is meant to be read.

• 1:48:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I, I don't, I don't think I have that issue. I don't think of people having to read it. It's like I've been trained so much in a particular thing.

• 1:48:32Trevor Noah?

  When I tell you that.

• 1:48:34Speaker 00

  I think you can break the habit, man.

• 1:48:36Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but your habit has to, your habit has to surpass like how many years you did the thing for. I wrote thousands and thousands of letters as a child. This was like part of my like part-time jobbing. There are sentences and there are structures that are in my brain when I see it written down. I can't, I can't.

• 1:48:58Speaker 00

  This is so funny to me.

• 1:49:00Trevor Noah?

  It's like, it's like I was, I was doing gymnastics from the age of 11 and now you're saying like, let me teach you how to just randomly fall. I can't fall. I balance. This is what I do.

• 1:49:10Speaker 00

  Oh, well, maybe there's no hope.

• 1:49:14Trevor Noah?

  I'll try, I'll try, I'll try.

• 1:49:15Speaker 00

  Don't try.

• 1:49:16Trevor Noah?

  No, I'll try, I'll try for the sake of trying.

• 1:49:17Speaker 00

  Only do it if you want to.

• 1:49:18Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I'll try.

• 1:49:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 1:49:19Trevor Noah?

  Because I, because I want to see what'll happen.

• 1:49:21Speaker 00

  I just want to, I want you to jot something down. I want you to read all of Jeffrey Epstein's emails. And be like, I can do this. I can do this. It's really, it frees you, it frees you.

• 1:49:35Trevor Noah?

  Yes, maybe if he focused on the grammar, he would have been a better man.

• 1:49:39Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 1:49:39Trevor Noah?

  Maybe that's the first step.

• 1:49:41Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 1:49:41Trevor Noah?

  If you think, if you, if you know where the period should be, maybe you would stop. Maybe that's what it is.

• 1:49:47Speaker 00

  Cleanliness is next to godliness.

• 1:49:48Trevor Noah?

  There it is, my friend.

• 1:49:49Speaker 00

  Including in the emails.

• 1:49:50Trevor Noah?

  There it is.

• 1:49:50Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm just thankful that you're not an all lowercase guy.

• 1:49:54Trevor Noah?

  No, I'm not.

• 1:49:54Speaker 00

  You know any all lowercase guys?

• 1:49:56Trevor Noah?

  I do, yeah, I do.

• 1:49:56Speaker 00

  How old are they?

• 1:49:58Trevor Noah?

  Twenty.

• 1:49:59Speaker 00

  Okay, I have a friend who's like 43.

• 1:50:01Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:50:02Speaker 00

  And has a kid.

• 1:50:03Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:50:04Speaker 00

  And he's all lowercase. And I, this might be the first time that he knows about this, but brother, you gotta.

• 1:50:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's not.

• 1:50:14Speaker 00

  You're an adult man. It's time to use proper caps lock, at the very least.

• 1:50:19Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no. At the beginning of a sentence, at least.

• 1:50:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, you don't have to use periods or.

• 1:50:23Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, but just start, just start it off as if you knew the sentence was beginning.

• 1:50:28Speaker 00

  Cause there's a real tone when it's all lowercase.

• 1:50:30Trevor Noah?

  There really is.

• 1:50:30Speaker 00

  It's a real like, I'm a little bitch.

• 1:50:33Trevor Noah?

  It's just, it's just like, at an, at an age, it's wrong.

• 1:50:37Speaker 00

  It's really.

• 1:50:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, if you're young, it's like, I do not care for the constraints that society has created for me.

• 1:50:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:50:42Trevor Noah?

  But when you're old, you're just like, what, what happened? Did you forget? Did you never know?

• 1:50:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:50:47Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I think you need to.

• 1:50:48Speaker 00

  You're not, you're not punk.

• 1:50:50Trevor Noah?

  You should go into the group chat and you should say this.

• 1:50:52Speaker 00

  I, I, I, I, he has thin skin. He has really thin skin. I'm just kidding, you don't have thin skin.

• 1:51:01Speaker 00

  I don't want to offend you and I have, I have, I have told them, I have told them. I just think at a certain point.

• 1:51:07Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:51:08Speaker 00

  You know what? I switched from all lowercase to regular caps lock and look at me. Thirty three.

• 1:51:13Trevor Noah?

  Here you are now.

• 1:51:14Speaker 00

  Same.

• 1:51:14Trevor Noah?

  Finally successful.

• 1:51:15Speaker 00

  Exactly. And I think it might have had something to do with it.

• 1:51:18Trevor Noah?

  Changed everything.

• 1:51:18Speaker 00

  It changed everything.

• 1:51:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, now, now your daughter would be proud.

• 1:51:21Speaker 00

  Dress for the job you want.

• 1:51:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. How is that going by the way? How's fatherhood treating you?

• 1:51:25Speaker 00

  It's honestly the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life.

• 1:51:27Trevor Noah?

  Don't say that because everyone says that.

• 1:51:29Speaker 00

  I'm not.

• 1:51:29Trevor Noah?

  That's boring.

• 1:51:30Speaker 00

  At first I didn't say that. I would be on podcasts and people would be like, you have a kid and I'd be like, yeah, it's all right. Literally.

• 1:51:35Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay, great.

• 1:51:36Speaker 00

  I would say that.

• 1:51:37Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:51:37Speaker 00

  You know, up to, up until about a year, when I really genuinely was

• 1:51:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:41Speaker 00

  honest, I was like, it's good.

• 1:51:45Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, so what, what changed?

• 1:51:48Speaker 00

  I think with men, or maybe just my experience.

• 1:51:51Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:52Speaker 00

  You know, the mom and the baby have a relationship.

• 1:51:55Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, no, this is real. I think this is completely real.

• 1:51:57Speaker 00

  For nine months.

• 1:51:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:59Speaker 00

  Not paying rent, but it's living in her stomach.

• 1:52:01Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, this is, this I agree with you on.

• 1:52:02Speaker 00

  And they have a feeling and they feel each other's heartbeat, they feel each other's bodies. And then it comes out and they are bonded.

• 1:52:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:09Speaker 00

  It looks at me and I go, kind of weird looking. Why is the head look like that? Is the head not perfect? Like, I'm just like, I want a perfect head. And it's just crying. It doesn't care about me because I don't provide milk. I don't, I don't provide anything. I don't even provide barely any warmth. Big guy, but you know, why would you want to hug me when you could hug your mom? So all of these things make it feel like, like, almost like there's a stranger in the house.

• 1:52:34Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:52:35Speaker 00

  And of course I loved her, right? Like, I loved her. I felt deep love for her. But when she started treating me like I was a human, you know what I mean? It's almost like when we started seeing the human in each other.

• 1:52:49Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:52:50Speaker 00

  That's when it became like. It is a cliche because it's true. It became something that is like so. I don't know. It's weird, man. It's really weird. It's shocking how much I love her. I've never loved anyone more than her.

• 1:53:05Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:53:05Speaker 00

  In my life. Yeah, it's the best thing I've ever done.

• 1:53:07Trevor Noah?

  That's really, really beautiful.

• 1:53:09Speaker 00

  It's really unbelievable. And honestly, like, I'm grateful it's a girl. Cause it's, it's just, I don't know, dude, being a girl dad's cool.

• 1:53:19Trevor Noah?

  Well, you don't know what the alternative is.

• 1:53:20Speaker 00

  Well.

• 1:53:21Trevor Noah?

  I'm happy for you.

• 1:53:22Speaker 00

  I can imagine.

• 1:53:23Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, but I'm happy. I'm not, I'm not saying I'm not happy, but I'm saying you.

• 1:53:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the relation, I don't know.

• 1:53:28Trevor Noah?

  I think you, you would be, there's another universe where you're sitting opposite me being like, ah, and I'm glad it's a boy because, man, being a boy dad is great.

• 1:53:34Speaker 00

  Playing devil's advocate, but everyone knows a girl dad is a special thing. Ask Kobe.

• 1:53:38Trevor Noah?

  No, I'm, I'm not, I'm not.

• 1:53:41Trevor Noah?

  That's a crazy one to say ask, but.

• 1:53:45Trevor Noah?

  I'll ask Berman a bio. That's who I will ask.

• 1:53:47Speaker 00

  Ask Google about Kobe.

• 1:53:48Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no. I think, I think, um, I hear what you're saying, but I think all of them are special because they just, you know what I mean? So I think, I think there's a world. But I, I, you know, it's funny. I want to talk to an, like an expert about this because I, I know we had Arthur C. Brooks on the podcast and he talked about small things that we take for granted in relationships. One of them being, for instance, that, um, women, I think, receive more oxytocin from eye contact than men do. And then it made me wonder, like with babies, maybe there's something there where when women are like looking at a baby, they're actually getting something that maybe men aren't in the same way. And maybe we're not designed to get it because of like, back in the day, we're supposed to be like running out and, and going and fighting and something. So like, you can't have that feeling. I don't know.

• 1:54:32Speaker 00

  Or you look someone in the eyes, it means you want to fight.

• 1:54:34Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, this is true. Now you're like, gotta fight my baby.

• 1:54:38Speaker 00

  No, but when I look, like, it's also just weird to like, look, when I look at her in the eyes, and I do now.

• 1:54:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:44Speaker 00

  I'm like, so weird. Cause like, I can see myself. Just really weird to like, look at. It's a weird, it's just a weird.

• 1:54:52Trevor Noah?

  You're looking at a version of you.

• 1:54:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a weird thing that you can't experience unless it happens. You know what I mean?

• 1:54:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:54:57Speaker 00

  I, I never actually even really wanted kids. I was always like, if it happens, it happens.

• 1:55:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 00

  That was my whole vibe and. And then I had one and I was like, this is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me. But I was, I was never like a baby crazy guy. And I never was like, I need to be a dad. I have friends that are like wanna be a dad.

• 1:55:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:14Speaker 00

  And I was like, I could take it or leave it. But now that I've had one, I do want more. And I would love in an ideal world to have a bunch. But I think it's because it's not an ideal world. It's impossible to have a bunch for me.

• 1:55:28Trevor Noah?

  But what, how many does your partner want?

• 1:55:30Speaker 00

  I think we're both gonna go for like, she's cool with one more.

• 1:55:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:55:33Speaker 00

  I'm cool with one more. Do you have any?

• 1:55:35Trevor Noah?

  It's crazy that, no, I don't. But this is crazy that it was like, there's a time when it was just like six.

• 1:55:40Speaker 00

  I would love that.

• 1:55:41Trevor Noah?

  You would?

• 1:55:42Speaker 00

  I would love it.

• 1:55:42Trevor Noah?

  What, what, what would you, what would you love about it? How many, how many siblings are you in the, are you?

• 1:55:46Speaker 00

  I have a brother and sister.

• 1:55:47Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so you wanted three.

• 1:55:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:55:49Trevor Noah?

  Oldest, youngest, middle?

• 1:55:50Speaker 00

  I'm oldest.

• 1:55:51Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:55:51Speaker 00

  How about you?

• 1:55:52Trevor Noah?

  I'm oldest of three boys.

• 1:55:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:55:54Trevor Noah?

  And when we're like huge gap, ten years, ten years. Yeah. So it's like complete generational.

• 1:56:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:56:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:00Speaker 00

  So your parents were like, we'll get around to it.

• 1:56:03Trevor Noah?

  So I was, we, I'm from my dad and my mom, and then the two of them have a different dad. Yeah. But it's, it's, what's crazy is when you have such a big gap, it's almost like you're all single kids. You, you just have your own, you know, there was never like a toy issue. There was never a, you're all doing your own thing. You're not even at the same schools at the same time. You're not in high school at the same time. You're not in, you know what I mean?

• 1:56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the difference between twenty and ten is crazy.

• 1:56:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's completely, okay.

• 1:56:29Speaker 00

  My, my brother and sister, we're all like very close in age. And, and I, I don't know, it's not, I don't even look at it from like, I want them to have siblings. I look at it as like, I want a bunch of little kids hugging my legs. Like, and then I also.

• 1:56:42Trevor Noah?

  You should just go be a mall Santa. You don't, that's a much cheaper way to achieve your dream.

• 1:56:47Speaker 00

  But then the fast forward part, when I'm like seventy.

• 1:56:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:50Speaker 00

  I like, and I look at a table of my kids, I'm imagining that that feels as good as.

• 1:56:57Speaker 00

  When I see my baby, you know what I mean?

• 1:56:58Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 1:56:59Speaker 00

  I feel like seeing the adults, you're like, damn, I did this, like, they're all happy and like, hopefully, you know, like.

• 1:57:05Trevor Noah?

  Do you ever wonder what happens to the people where like all their kids hate them?

• 1:57:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, or if your kids are uncool and you hate them.

• 1:57:12Trevor Noah?

  I don't think your kids, I think if your kids are uncool, this is a complete reflection on you.

• 1:57:16Speaker 00

  You don't think there's parents out there that are like, my kid's a loser and I don't like that kid?

• 1:57:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I think it's on you. I, I, that's my take. It's completely on you, like 100% on you. Because here's the thing, I, you cannot make the human being, but you have almost complete control as to what that human being interacts with. So what movies are they first watching as a child? What books are they reading? What games are they playing? Where are they going? What clothes are they wearing? What, like, this is all you putting in raw materials. The world is gonna have an impact, but I don't know. If, if there's any parent who's like, my kid's a loser, I'm like, yeah, you made a loser. I'm not saying they're not a loser, I'm saying you made a loser.

• 1:57:53Speaker 00

  That, that's, that's happening.

• 1:57:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I'm saying you made a loser.

• 1:57:55Speaker 00

  Right, you made a, it's, it's on the parents, it's on the parents.

• 1:57:58Trevor Noah?

  You made a loser, man. I'm sorry.

• 1:57:59Speaker 00

  Do you want, do you want a kid?

• 1:58:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm, I'm like you. I'm agnostic. I'm like.

• 1:58:03Speaker 00

  You're like, if it happens, it happens.

• 1:58:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And I'm just like, you know? Because sometimes I meet kids and I'm like, these things are beautiful and wonderful. And then sometimes I meet them and I'm like, this is like the spawn of Satan. I, I don't wish for this in my life.

• 1:58:17Speaker 00

  I was always super ambivalent. I was always like, meh.

• 1:58:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? I was like, whatever, I don't care. Like, people will be like, look at my baby, but cool. Very cool.

• 1:58:25Trevor Noah?

  Babies are boring, to be honest with you.

• 1:58:27Speaker 00

  They are, they are.

• 1:58:27Trevor Noah?

  I never understand why people are, look at my baby.

• 1:58:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:58:30Trevor Noah?

  The worst is when they show you pictures of a baby and you're like, every baby looks a version of the same. They're like, no, it's cute. My one is extra cute. It's like, it's not. It's really not.

• 1:58:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've, I've, it's like when you get a dog, I've, like, then you start noticing other people's dogs.

• 1:58:42Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 1:58:43Speaker 00

  So now that I have a baby, I'm like.

• 1:58:44Trevor Noah?

  Now you see.

• 1:58:45Speaker 00

  I see other, I see.

• 1:58:46Trevor Noah?

  You now have baby eyes.

• 1:58:47Speaker 00

  Dude, it's so weird. I'll be like in the airport and I'll be like, oh, look at that cute little kid, which is so weird. You know what I mean? I feel like, I'll like notice little kids and like be like, oh, that one's so cute. Yeah, it's, but it is, and, and when Karina, my, my wife was pregnant, like I started noticing.

• 1:59:01Trevor Noah?

  Was Kareem and Karina?

• 1:59:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:59:03Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 1:59:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:59:04Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:59:04Speaker 00

  Pretty nice.

• 1:59:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:59:06Speaker 00

  But then I started noticing pregnant people.

• 1:59:08Trevor Noah?

  It's nice until people are like trying to call you in a house or in a space or like, how many times do people shout one and then you both respond? Karina, Karin.

• 1:59:16Speaker 00

  No, not all the time.

• 1:59:17Trevor Noah?

  It's not ideal.

• 1:59:18Speaker 00

  But yeah, I, I had a funny prank about naming the kid Karima.

• 1:59:23Trevor Noah?

  That would be good.

• 1:59:24Speaker 00

  It's a good prank.

• 1:59:24Trevor Noah?

  You see, now that's good.

• 1:59:25Speaker 00

  I know. That's confusing.

• 1:59:28Trevor Noah?

  That's fantastic.

• 1:59:29Speaker 00

  Kareem, Kareem and Kareem.

• 1:59:30Trevor Noah?

  No, you see, now that, that's worth having a kid for.

• 1:59:33Speaker 00

  And if it's id- ideally, I would time it to the next leap year. So it could also have a funny birthday.

• 1:59:42Trevor Noah?

  Jesus.

• 1:59:44Speaker 00

  So Kareem born on leap year. And it's like, what's your name? My name's Kareem. When's your birthday? Oh, it only happens once every four years.

• 1:59:52Trevor Noah?

  Twenty ninth of February.

• 1:59:53Speaker 00

  So sad. Like, that's a sad life.

• 1:59:57Trevor Noah?

  That's actually the greatest life, by the way.

• 1:59:58Speaker 00

  Leap year, baby?

• 1:59:59Trevor Noah?

  Uh, anything, anything weird, baby.

• 2:00:03Speaker 00

  Birthmark? Cool birthmark?

• 2:00:04Trevor Noah?

  No, like, they, they just say, you know, your name, your anything. It just creates some resistance in life that will add a little spice to your existence. It, it won't be easy necessarily. But it'll be like, what's your name? Kareem. I'm sorry? Already you've engaged somebody.

• 2:00:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:00:22Trevor Noah?

  What's your name? John? John. We move on with our lives. There's no pause. There's no nothing. Uh, what's your date of birth? Twenty ninth of February. Twenty ninth of February?

• 2:00:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:00:31Trevor Noah?

  Wait, you're a leap year, baby? They've made friends.

• 2:00:34Speaker 00

  Right. Spice of life.

• 2:00:35Trevor Noah?

  Spice of life.

• 2:00:36Speaker 00

  Is to have parents that are evil.

• 2:00:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you've got to have parents who are willing to like, just, you know what I mean?

• 2:00:42Speaker 00

  Push the limit a little bit.

• 2:00:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, just give you a little.

• 2:00:44Speaker 00

  Give you a little edge.

• 2:00:45Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but you didn't go with a prank name?

• 2:00:46Speaker 00

  No, I went with like a beautiful name that I really love, yeah.

• 2:00:49Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:00:50Speaker 00

  But I'm already thinking of a name for the next one.

• 2:00:52Trevor Noah?

  All right. Good intention, but, you know, whatever.

• 2:00:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Are you gonna come on the show?

• 2:00:56Trevor Noah?

  Which show?

• 2:00:57Speaker 00

  My show.

• 2:00:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, which one?

• 2:00:59Speaker 00

  Subway takes.

• 2:00:59Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 2:01:00Speaker 00

  Unless you want to come on the cab ride.

• 2:01:01Trevor Noah?

  Keep the meter running.

• 2:01:02Speaker 00

  I can also take you on a cab ride.

• 2:01:03Trevor Noah?

  I would actually love to go on a cab ride.

• 2:01:04Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm sure I could find.

• 2:01:05Trevor Noah?

  That's like one of my favorite, favorite, favorite. I was actually, when I was thinking of your show, I was going, I hope you do a London version. London cabbies might be my favorite cabbies in the whole world.

• 2:01:15Speaker 00

  They're unbelievable.

• 2:01:16Trevor Noah?

  Have you seen what they have to do to become cabbies in London?

• 2:01:18Speaker 00

  It's called the knowledge.

• 2:01:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:01:20Trevor Noah?

  And it is truly the knowledge.

• 2:01:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:01:22Trevor Noah?

  It's human AI contained in a tiny, little, beautiful black box that has a turning circle that no vehicle should possess.

• 2:01:28Speaker 00

  That's incredible.

• 2:01:29Trevor Noah?

  These guys know.

• 2:01:32Trevor Noah?

  Everything. Every time I'm in London, in a taxi, I will ask them for a recommendation for food, for a show, for, and they'll just, they'll just go off.

• 2:01:41Speaker 00

  They know everything.

• 2:01:42Trevor Noah?

  They just know.

• 2:01:43Speaker 00

  It's also crazy because you go, it's on the corner of, uh.

• 2:01:45Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

• 2:01:46Speaker 00

  It's on the corner of Middle Ditch and.

• 2:01:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:49Speaker 00

  High Street.

• 2:01:50Trevor Noah?

  Is that, is that next to the fish and chips shop? And then you're like, yeah.

• 2:01:53Speaker 00

  All right, then.

• 2:01:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Speaker 00

  And then they're just.

• 2:01:55Trevor Noah?

  And then just, and then they're off.

• 2:01:56Speaker 00

  It's so magical. Yeah, they have to memorize every, you know, they have to, they have to memorize every street.

• 2:02:00Trevor Noah?

  Yes, every single street.

• 2:02:02Speaker 00

  Isn't that crazy?

• 2:02:02Trevor Noah?

  But what I love is that because of that, I feel like they also have this ability to recall. That's what I mean. They'll tell me about passengers who really loved a thing. And so they go, they're like a, like a real human aggregator of information. And they'll say to you, they'll be like, well, a lot of people have been talking, and they were talking through the glass backwards at you through the speaker. So it's like this shout thing.

• 2:02:23Speaker 00

  I love the speaker.

• 2:02:24Trevor Noah?

  A lot of people have been saying it's a really great experience. You've got to go there. You've got, yeah, a lot of people are loving it. You've got, you've got to get out there. Well, I don't, I've never been, but a lot of, a lot of my passengers have been saying it's great. And every time I pick up someone, they said it's great. And you're like, oh shit, okay.

• 2:02:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02:38Trevor Noah?

  They're amazing. They are truly, truly amazing.

• 2:02:40Speaker 00

  No, they're, they're incredible.

• 2:02:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I, I love that. So I would, I would do it. Would I come on subway takes? I, I would, but I, okay, let me ask you this. How, how would you? And actually, how do you insulate people from sort of coming on to try and have a take?

• 2:02:57Speaker 00

  Like, what do you mean?

• 2:03:00Trevor Noah?

  I can only assume some people come on subway takes thinking like, yeah, I'm gonna say this because it'll get a response. And then you probably have to step in and be like, uh-uh.

• 2:03:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:11Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's not what we're doing here. How do you, how do you keep it authentic, for lack of a better word?

• 2:03:17Speaker 00

  I, I, I like have a little bit of a process. So my producer, Rami, he's a young man, Young Rami, that's his nickname.

• 2:03:24Trevor Noah?

  Uh-huh.

• 2:03:25Speaker 00

  I give everyone a Trump nickname now, but usually nice. So like, Young Rami.

• 2:03:29Trevor Noah?

  Young Rami, yeah, and he is young. He's so young, so young, you know? Doesn't look that young when you meet him, but he's a young man.

• 2:03:38Speaker 00

  Young man.

• 2:03:39Trevor Noah?

  Young Rami.

• 2:03:40Speaker 00

  Wow. He's gonna like that. He's gonna like this clip. He's gonna like this clap cuz he is young.

• 2:03:47Trevor Noah?

  He's a young stand up.

• 2:03:48Speaker 00

  So he synthesizes the takes. He receives them.

• 2:03:51Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:03:52Speaker 00

  He's the first to receive them.

• 2:03:53Trevor Noah?

  Got it.

• 2:03:53Speaker 00

  He checks for duplicates.

• 2:03:55Trevor Noah?

  Oh, so no one has a take that another person has, I like this already.

• 2:03:58Speaker 00

  He checks for duplicates. He also like gets clarity of somebody's like.

• 2:04:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:04:04Speaker 00

  He's like, what does that mean?

• 2:04:06Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 2:04:07Speaker 00

  And if it means nothing, he's like, get a new one. And if it means something, he's like, okay, that is interesting.

• 2:04:12Trevor Noah?

  Ah.

• 2:04:13Speaker 00

  So, so he kind of vets the takes and has this little process of elimination where.

• 2:04:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:18Speaker 00

  Cuz some people come on and they're overprepared.

• 2:04:21Trevor Noah?

  That's what I mean.

• 2:04:21Speaker 00

  Which is awful.

• 2:04:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's what, okay, okay, this is what I mean.

• 2:04:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't like when someone, cuz if, if they send, if it's like Rami's getting the take and it's like this long.

• 2:04:30Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:04:30Speaker 00

  I'm like, overprepared.

• 2:04:31Trevor Noah?

  Okay, got it.

• 2:04:32Speaker 00

  That's, you're coming on to do a bit. Every once in a while, we'll like plan a bit or something, somebody will be like, I have this idea, I wanna do this.

• 2:04:39Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, got it.

• 2:04:40Speaker 00

  And then I'll be like, okay, that's a funny idea, it's never been done before, let's do it. So that's really it, it's just like a little process of that. And then when we meet in real life, I'm like, so what is it? And you're like, blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, okay, great. And then we just do it.

• 2:04:53Trevor Noah?

  Ah, okay, I'll join you.

• 2:04:54Speaker 00

  But if you have a bit.

• 2:04:56Trevor Noah?

  No, I don't, I don't wanna do a bit.

• 2:04:57Speaker 00

  You don't?

• 2:04:58Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I definitely don't wanna do a bit, I'm so bit it out.

• 2:05:00Speaker 00

  You're done.

• 2:05:01Trevor Noah?

  I'm bit it out, my friend.

• 2:05:02Speaker 00

  You're retired from bits.

• 2:05:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm just like.

• 2:05:04Speaker 00

  There's nothing to be bidding about.

• 2:05:06Trevor Noah?

  No, it's not, it's not even that, it's just I, I, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm in a stage of, of my life where I am in the pursuit of, of, um, the least bitty things possible. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:05:20Speaker 00

  But still funny.

• 2:05:21Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you just don't like bits. But not like bits, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, yeah, I'm just liking the.

• 2:05:26Speaker 00

  I'm in a bit phase.

• 2:05:27Trevor Noah?

  Ah, I like this.

• 2:05:27Speaker 00

  I love bits.

• 2:05:28Trevor Noah?

  No, no, bits, I mean, they are great when you're in the mood for them.

• 2:05:31Speaker 00

  It's a great bit.

• 2:05:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but when you're not, when you're bit less.

• 2:05:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're just not feeling the bit?

• 2:05:37Trevor Noah?

  I think I'm just bit it out. I mean, you know, when you do like late night for so many years, every day of the of the week is a bit. It's like, what's the bit? What bit are we doing here? What's a bit? Do we have a bit for this guest? Do we have a bit for that? Do we have a bit for that thing? You've got to do a bit for this. Oh, we've got it. Needs to be a bit. Needs to be a bit. This is just like too many bits.

• 2:05:52Speaker 00

  That's my dream meeting.

• 2:05:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:54Speaker 00

  What you just described.

• 2:05:55Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no.

• 2:05:55Speaker 00

  I would love to sit in a meeting and say that.

• 2:05:57Trevor Noah?

  No, hey, man, you you're welcome. But after after many, many, many, many years of doing it every single day of the week, you go like, I have you ever talked to people who like work at like a KFC?

• 2:06:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:06:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. Have you asked them whether they like wanna eat KFC?

• 2:06:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:06:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:15Speaker 00

  They don't.

• 2:06:15Trevor Noah?

  You you just go like.

• 2:06:17Speaker 00

  That's so sad.

• 2:06:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's like it's not about the chicken itself. It's just, yo, man, I've I've I've I'm done.

• 2:06:24Speaker 00

  That's so funny.

• 2:06:24Trevor Noah?

  I'm done for now.

• 2:06:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:06:26Trevor Noah?

  Yes. So for now in my life, I'm.

• 2:06:27Speaker 00

  So when you see a great bit, do you do you still say? Do you still say that's a great bit?

• 2:06:33Trevor Noah?

  No, I love it. I mean, because funny is funny, good is good. I I I don't have that. But I do think I've been a little desensitized. So I might do that. Unfortunately, I'll be like, hmm, that was a good bit. Well, executed bit.

• 2:06:43Speaker 00

  Well, I'm not gonna do a bit if you're not gonna do it.

• 2:06:44Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, I'll just say.

• 2:06:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:06:47Trevor Noah?

  That is a good. When I see a bit, I'll just go, that is a good bit.

• 2:06:50Speaker 00

  You deliver it in a neutral tone.

• 2:06:52Trevor Noah?

  I find I I no longer have the like the the thing that comes out of me spontaneously because I'm I'm constantly monitoring for the bits to occur.

• 2:07:00Speaker 00

  You say it how you would type it.

• 2:07:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I go, that is a good bit.

• 2:07:03Speaker 00

  That is a good bit.

• 2:07:04Trevor Noah?

  That is a fantastic bit. This happens to stand up comedians all the time. If you look at like stand ups, we've been doing stand up for a very long time. At some point, they don't laugh at most things. They go, that's funny.

• 2:07:14Speaker 00

  That's a good joke.

• 2:07:14Trevor Noah?

  They'll be like, yo, that was, yo, that was.

• 2:07:16Speaker 00

  That's funny. Yeah, I've seen people do that.

• 2:07:18Trevor Noah?

  That's funny as shit. Yo, that's a good joke. No laughter.

• 2:07:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:24Trevor Noah?

  So then the laugh actually starts to come from where it wouldn't have come. Like, if you if you watch comedians in the back of a comedy club, watching comedians, they laugh when the audience isn't laughing. Like, they they, you know what I mean?

• 2:07:35Speaker 00

  They laugh in the.

• 2:07:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they're laughing on the one and three.

• 2:07:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:37Trevor Noah?

  Audience is laughing, you know, on the two and four.

• 2:07:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:07:40Trevor Noah?

  And comedians will just like laugh at a random thing. And you know when a comedian's watching because they'll laugh at a moment when no one else is laughing.

• 2:07:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:07:48Trevor Noah?

  You know, so.

• 2:07:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love.

• 2:07:50Trevor Noah?

  So I'll come. I'll come. I'll I'll do it.

• 2:07:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, come on. Don't do a bit.

• 2:07:53Trevor Noah?

  I'll I'll. Maybe we'll do a bit.

• 2:07:54Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:07:55Trevor Noah?

  Maybe you will reignite my love and my passion for bits.

• 2:07:57Speaker 00

  I don't wanna do it.

• 2:07:59Trevor Noah?

  You're a bit guy, you can't say you don't.

• 2:08:00Speaker 00

  I know, but I only want to do a bit with someone who wants to do a bit. I won't make you do a bit.

• 2:08:03Trevor Noah?

  No, no, you won't make me. You could inspire me to do a bit. You could inspire me to do a bit. Wouldn't that be an amazing story? The comeback of the bit. Huh?

• 2:08:13Speaker 00

  Trevor Noah.

• 2:08:13Trevor Noah?

  Be like a documentary at Tribeca. And he's like, I thought bits were over in my life. And then I met this guy Kareem. And let me tell you something.

• 2:08:21Speaker 00

  You're so good at voices.

• 2:08:23Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you something. He got me doing bits again, that guy Kareem. Oh, he got me back in the bits. It could be the beginning. This has been great, man.

• 2:08:34Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:08:35Trevor Noah?

  Thank you very much.

• 2:08:36Speaker 00

  Great bit.

• 2:08:40Speaker 00

  Is the bit over?

• 2:08:43Trevor Noah?

  Uh, this is great.

• 2:08:44Speaker 00

  That's it?

• 2:08:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:45Speaker 00

  Okay, great.

• 2:08:45Trevor Noah?

  No, man, thank you for real.

• 2:08:46Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, that was so fun.

• 2:08:48Trevor Noah?

  It was too much fun.

• 2:08:48Speaker 00

  Crazy that you didn't tell me that we were recording.

• 2:08:51Trevor Noah?

  I mean, we roll.

• 2:08:52Speaker 00

  Kind of nice.

• 2:08:53Trevor Noah?

  Because otherwise, it's, you see, that's another thing I don't, I don't want someone to like, go like, that thing.

• 2:08:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, it's really cool to roll into like that. I've actually, that's never happened to me before.

• 2:09:03Trevor Noah?

  I appreciate it.

• 2:09:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:09:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, just roll. And then if someone goes like, oh, I don't include them, we don't include. It's not, it's not a trick or anything.

• 2:09:09Speaker 00

  I had a lot of fun.

• 2:09:09Trevor Noah?

  I just don't want someone.

• 2:09:11Speaker 00

  Right, right, it's a start.

• 2:09:13Trevor Noah?

  Because I've seen people do that. So you go like, are we ready? Let's begin. And then I watched them change their posture.

• 2:09:18Speaker 00

  I know what you're talking about.

• 2:09:18Trevor Noah?

  And then they go, well, Trevor. Aw, fuck.

• 2:09:21Speaker 00

  The minute the camera comes out, some people freak out.

• 2:09:24Trevor Noah?

  Well, Trevor, it's funny you ask me that.

• 2:09:29Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.

• 2:10:15Speaker 06

  What's up, sports fans? I'm Rachel Damita, here to tell you about my show Courtside Club. If you love hoops and hot takes, then you're in the right place. Want to hear about Katelyn Clark's unstoppable rise in the WNBA? How stars like Wendy and Luka Doncic are dominating the NBA? Or maybe you just want the tea on this week's most viral sports moments. Don't worry, we'll keep you updated on all of it. So grab your popcorn and come hang with us. Courtside. You can listen to Courtside Club wherever you get your podcasts. Oui et ah.

• 2:10:48Speaker 06

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