Recurring The Daily Show host Josh Johnson surprised his viewers Thursday by joking that President Trump may deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump announced Wednesday that he’d brokered a fragile but hopeful peace deal between Israel and Hamas.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this: I got to give Donald Trump some props here,” Johnson said in response to the news.
“It doesn’t happen a lot,” he added. “In fact, I can only think of this, the COVID vaccine, and Home Alone 2.”
Although the “props” line garnered some groans from the audience, Johnson drew even louder disapproval by adding, “Look, if this deal holds, maybe we should give Trump the Nobel Peace Prize.”
As the crowd voiced their displeasure, Johnson added, “Or, and you won’t like this either, we let him burn the Epstein files.”
Between the peace prize and burning the Epstein files, Johnson joked, “He only gets one, but he gets to pick, all right?”
Johnson joked further about Trump’s peace deal, saying to Trump, “When it comes to peace, you did it... I mean, you also did a big portion of the war, but you did the peace, too.”
He joked, “It’s like how white people did slavery in America, but they also ended slavery in America.”
To white people, he added, “And I just want to say thank you.”
Johnson’s comments came hours before the prize winner is set to be announced by Norwegian committee leader Joergen Watne Frydnes.
President Trump has long argued that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize, although Nobel insiders don’t appear interested in granting his wish.
Trump’s campaign team sent out a fundraising email Thursday complaining that former president Barack Obama won the prize in 2009 for “doing NOTHING,” while Trump is being ignored by the prize committee despite “making GLOBAL PEACE a reality.”
Johnson was skeptical Trump will succeed in this pursuit, however, due to the president’s domestic policies.
He showed a news montage of Trump sending federal troops into blue cities like Chicago and Portland, as well as a clip of Trump suggesting Monday he’ll invoke the Insurrection Act to override the courts, some of which have already declared his troop deployments unlawful.
“Damn,” Johnson said. “This feels like he made peace abroad just so he could bring everybody back to whoop-a-- here.”
