Between the Seasons: Trump Dropping Bombs for Peace

What Now is taking a summer break! Season 3 will return in September with new guests, new ideas, and the same classic Trevor and friends. In the meantime, we’ll load up a few mystery bonus episodes, including this one straight from Trevor’s stand-up show in London.

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

• 0:01Trevor Noah?

  Hey, happy summer holidays, everyone. Or if you're in the southern hemisphere, happy wishing it was summer holidays, everyone. We're gonna be taking a break for a couple of months on What Now? As we wrap up season two and prepare for a very exciting season three with Sirius XM. It's gonna be all new guests, new ideas, new topics, and the same world. Yes, we still live in it, so that's where we'll be. I think it'll be the same world, I mean, we don't know if there'll be a world, but let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. In the meantime, though, we're gonna be loading up a few fun, interesting episodes, bonus episodes for you to enjoy. So it could be stuff of me on the road doing stand-up, having conversations with audiences,

• 0:44Trevor Noah?

  or you never know, I might just bump into a random, interesting person somewhere and decide to make a podcast episode with them. So stay tuned, stay listening, but most important, stay safe. Enjoy yourself and What Now? Season three will be back in September.

• 1:09Trevor Noah?

  It's been a good week, it's been a crazy week, oh my goodness. Like, I thought the week was just gonna be about comedy in London. And then Israel and Iran happened. And then we were on like the brink of like World War III. Like, you here are now Friday crowd having fun, Monday, Tuesday crowd, poof.

• 1:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you try tell jokes when there's missiles outside. Like, everyone was here, like...

• 1:40Trevor Noah?

  Because that would be a weird way, like, to be, you know what I mean? Like, at the beginning of World War III. People are like, "Where were you?", and you're like, "What?

• 1:51Trevor Noah?

  Uh, did you see what happened?", "No, I didn't", "Where were you?", "Uh, Trevor was telling us about, uh..."

• 2:00Trevor Noah?

  "About Brixton."

• 2:05Trevor Noah?

  It was such an insane story as well, like now I feel like the world we live in. I sometimes think about like parallel universes and timelines and I'm not sure if I believe it, but, but when I do think about it, I go like, I think we somehow slipped into the ludicrous timeline. Like, we were all in a very normal timeline, us as people, and then something happened around like Covid, and then we went into the crazy timeline. And then the other versions of us are now like, wow, things have become very boring and normal. Because like, this is not normal, you know? Like, the week starts off, well, the, I mean, it's been like two weeks technically. Right, it starts off, Israel, Iran was negotiating a nuclear deal with America. Negotiating a deal, negotiating a deal, they're making progress, making progress. They're getting close, they're getting super close, and then Israel was like, uh-uh.

• 2:51Trevor Noah?

  No, no deal. And then Israel started launching missiles at Iran, right? And then it's hard to make a deal when like missiles hitting you, you know what I mean? Like, you're trying, it's like when you're like trying to break up with someone at a restaurant, and then the waiter keeps coming, is everything great here? Hold, just wait, just, I'm just, let me just handle, let me just handle. So what I'm saying is, I'm just, is, how's everything going? Yeah, yeah, look, hey, we'll call you, it will call you, we'll call you, please. So Iran was like, alright, I can't, I can't handle, I can't, and so then Iran was like, missiles back at Israel, missiles, missiles, missiles. And then Israel was like, missiles, missiles, and then Iran was like, missiles, missiles, and it was going back and forth, back and forth. Israel was definitely winning it, because like, Iran has missiles, but not like Israel's type of missiles. You know what I mean, like, Iran doesn't have much money and stuff, so their missiles are like, those cheap fireworks, your friends.

• 3:36Trevor Noah?

  You know when your parents would, like, they'd feel bad? You'd be like, what are we doing for Guy Fawkes Day? And then your parents would be like, ah, do you want these ones? You're like, do you like them? They're like, no, just throw them on the ground.

• 3:46Trevor Noah?

  And it's like, pat, pat, pat. Do you feel like the other kids? No, I don't, at all. So Iran has those ones, and then they're launching back and forth, back and forth, back. The whole world was like, ah, man, this again, Middle East conflict, Middle East. And then, at the peak of it, everyone was like, ah, man, how could this get worse? Donald Trump was like, hello.

• 4:13Trevor Noah?

  Donald Trump came in and he was like, "I'm gonna help, I'm gonna totally de-escalate this situation." "I'm gonna de-escalate this situation." And we were like, "Ah, my man, you've never de-escalated a thing in your life." "In your life." "From your hair to your politics, nothing is a de-escalation." "Nothing."

• 4:36Trevor Noah?

  Trump came in and he's like, "I don't like how Iran and Israel are launching bombs at each other all the time." "So many bombs, we can't have this, it's not right." "Too many bombs, too many bombs." "We gotta stop it, no more bombs, no more bombs." "We gotta stop it, we gotta fix it." And they're like, "Alright, how you gonna fix it?" He's like, "By dropping bombs." "I'm gonna drop bombs."

• 5:01Trevor Noah?

  And no one, no one expected it. Like, the whole world was like, "Okay, Trump is gonna mediate or he's gonna..." Because he said to them, "Hey, guys, let's sort this out." "Peace deal, we're gonna do a peace deal." And then he dropped bombs on Iran. And everyone in the world was like, "What the hell?" And a lot of people in my life were like, "Oh, man, I can't believe that Trump did this, I can't believe..." And they were so stressed. And I was like, "Yes, but look on the bright side." And they're like, "What bright side?" I was like, "On the bright side, Trump also can't believe that he did this."

• 5:28Trevor Noah?

  Like, that's the one glimmer of hope that I get from Donald Trump is that, like, he also doesn't know what he's doing. He's in it with us. Which is a nice change. Oftentimes, we're at the mercy of those in power, but he's in the mercy with us. Like, we're all locked in a prison cell, but he's holding the key and he's like, "We're all trapped, we're all trapped." "What are we gonna do?" We're like, "Use the key." "What? What are you talking about?"

• 5:56Trevor Noah?

  And the reason I say this is because Trump came out and he hosted a press conference about it. It was so wild. He hosted a press conference about dropping the bombs. And he was shocked in the press conference. He came out and he's like, "Earlier today, the United States military..." "That's us, that's us."

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Launched missiles, bunker busters, launched missiles on Iran, on all their nuclear facilities. And, "Boy, you don't understand, you've never seen bombs like that before." They came there and they dropped them, those bombs dropped. I couldn't believe what those bombs were doing. I couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it. And I called, I called, I'm the one who called. I said, "Drop the bombs." I didn't know I was gonna call. I said, "Two weeks." I said, "Two weeks." I told everybody, "Two weeks, it was gonna be two weeks." And then I was on the plane, then I said, "I'm calling, drop the bombs." And the bombs were dropped. I'd never seen bombs like that. I said, "Whoa, we're never dropping bombs like that again, I've never seen bombs like that." Those bombs were dropped, and now it's over, now it's over.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  We're all good, we're all good.

• 7:08Trevor Noah?

  And so now, because America had dropped bombs on them, then Iran had to respond. But then Iran didn't wanna get into a fight. No one wants to get into a fight with America, you know what I mean? And so Iran was like, "Ah, we're going to retaliate against you." And then they launched missiles at an American base in Qatar. But then they phoned America first.

• 7:26Trevor Noah?

  They did, they were like, "All right, we're launching bombs against you. In like forty-five minutes, an hour maybe, you tell us how long you need. Then we will launch, we'll launch the bombs." And then the Americans cleared out their base and everything important, and then the bombs fell.

• 7:43Trevor Noah?

  And then Trump, very, like, in an interesting way, he responded to Iran. Then he wrote on his, like, thing online, on his profile. He was like, "Thank you to Iran for giving us notice about the bombs. Now it's over, it's all over, there will be peace." And then he said, "Iran, Israel, peace." And they were like, "All right, peace, peace, peace, all good." Then Trump went to sleep.

• 8:06Trevor Noah?

  And in the four hours that he was sleeping... Israel, like, out of nowhere, they came and they were like, "Iran launched more missiles." And then everyone was like, "Wait, what missiles?" And Israel was like, "You launched missiles." And Iran was like, "No, uh-uh." And then Israel was like, "Too late, we're coming for you with more bombs." And then the world was like, "What?" And then Trump woke up, and this was the moment when I can safely say I have felt more connected to Donald Trump than I've ever in my entire life. Because that man is not a normal human being. Very seldom have I looked at Trump and thought, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can relate to this." But he came out after Israel was about to launch a full-scale bombing attack on Iran. And he came out, he heard about this. Man didn't even put on a tie. Came out of the White House, half-dressed,

• 8:50Trevor Noah?

  ran straight into reporters, and he went into it. He was like, "I heard about what Iran is doing and what Israel is doing. And let me tell you, I'm angry at Iran, but I'm more angry at Israel. They said peace, and I said, 'We're gonna do peace,' and they're launching, and I'm sick of them. Israel, you better not do it. You don't do it, Israel, I said, 'Peace,' you don't do it." He looked like a dad who had kids that were fighting in the backyard. And he was just going back and forth. He's just like, "Israel, shut up, baby, come on, shut up. Shut up, how many times do I have to tell your kids that you're not gonna..." "I told you once, and I'll tell you again." And then he looked at the reporter, and he did something I've never seen an American president do in my entire life. He cursed live on TV into the camera.

• 9:34Trevor Noah?

  Looked at the camera, and he was like... They were like, "What do you think, Mr.?" He's like, "I'll tell you what this is. You've got two countries that have been fighting so long, they don't know what the fuck they're doing."

• 9:53Trevor Noah?

  You're like, "Oh, Dad is mad."

• 9:59Trevor Noah?

  Dad is mad.

• 10:05Trevor Noah?

  And I don't know what was crazier, the fact that he cursed on live TV as an American president, or the fact that that somehow became bigger news than the actual bombs that were dropped. The bombs was like half a day of news. The biggest bombs ever dropped on a country randomly out of war was barely any news. And then Trump came out and he swore every news outlet, Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, you name it, all of them, all of them. Trump curses, Trump swears, Trump says F-word, F-F-word. And I was like, damn, so the F-bomb was more important than the bomb-bomb. Everyone on TV, we've never seen this before. We've never seen an American president curse on national television. This has never... I don't even understand what we're seeing right now.

• 10:50Trevor Noah?

  Donald Trump, and I must warn, I must warn sensitive viewers, I must warn sensitive... Yo, you showed footage of cities being leveled by bombs. You said it just casually. Let me show you some of the bombs that were dropped here. Let me show you some of the bombs. Alright, now, Trump said something. I must warn you, if you have children in the room, you might wanna cover their ears. You might wanna cover their ears because he said the F-bomb. Like, people cared more about the words than the... It was the wildest thing, wildest thing. I can't believe, I can't believe it. They were doing it as if the people in Iran were just like, "Yeah, no, no, no, no, the bombs are one thing, but what he said?

• 11:29Trevor Noah?

  You can take bombs back, but words?

• 11:34Trevor Noah?

  Words are forever."

• 11:42Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.