Sarah Silverman explains why Trump would make a good comedian
The 54-year-old is promoting her London standup tour, and is known for her controversial and taboo-breaking humour. She has previously said that she retired her 'arrogant ignorant' onstage persona after Trump's first win because it 'was no longer really amusing to me because he embodies that completely'.
Trump is currently at the centre of stock market mayhem and frantic international negotiations after imposing eye-watering tariffs on imports.
Despite the chaos of some of his political decisions, the businessman is also known for his provocative and unintentionally humorous statements, making him the subject of memes and parodies across the internet.
'I hate to say it, but Donald Trump has all the traits of a comedian,' she told the i.
'He's all charisma. He'll say anything it takes to please any crowd that is front of him. But he means none of it. Those are the traits of a comedian who does well on the road.'
Silverman continued: 'That's why, last time he was president, he never stopped having rallies – he was on the circuit! I wanna say: 'You don't have to be president to throw a party for yourself, y'know?''
Considered 'undeniably funny' by commentators, Trump's charisma has largely been considered a crucial aspect of his popularity and his threat, drawing comparisons to authoritarian leaders.
In 2007, Silverman faced criticism over her use of Blackface. She appeared to address the controversy in 2020, insisting that a 'path of redemption' should exist for those facing instances of 'cancel culture'.
'In this cancel culture – and we all know what I'm talking about, whether you think there is one or there isn't one or where you stand on it, and there's a lot of grey matter there,' she said on her podcast.
'But without a path to redemption, when you take someone and you found a tweet they wrote seven years ago or a thing that they said and you expose it and you say 'This person should be no more, banish them forever' – they're going to find some place where they are accepted, and it's not going to be with progressives.
'If we don't give these people a path to redemption, then they're going to go where they are accepted, which is the motherf****** dark side.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
5 minutes ago
- Spectator
Unesco status is killing Bath
Last month, the Trump administration announced that the United States would once again withdraw from Unesco, the Paris-based UN cultural agency responsible for World Heritage Sites, education initiatives, and cultural programmes worldwide. The official line? Unesco promotes 'woke, divisive cultural and social causes' and its 'globalist, ideological agenda' clashes with America First policy. Predictably, the Trump administration framed it as a culture-war grievance. But, set aside the politics, and it soon becomes clear that Trump might not be entirely wrong. Unesco – founded in 1945 with the lofty mission of promoting peace and global cooperation through culture, education, and science – has devolved into something far less edifying. Once led by artists, architects, and scholars, Unesco's World Heritage Committee has become the Fifa of culture: a fiefdom of bureaucrats, political journeymen and international grifters who drift between departments, NGOs and consultancies with no accountability, while the list of sites has ballooned to 1,248. Its $1.5 billion annual budget fuels a self-perpetuating treadmill of capacity-building workshops, unread reports and relentless reputation polishing. The consequences are not merely abstract for Bath, a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1987. Some World Heritage Sites are a single chapel, a medieval bridge, or a protected ruin; Bath's listing covers the entire city – all 94,000 residents, its suburban sprawl, its industrial remnants, and its everyday working streets. The designation treats the Georgian crescents and Roman baths as inseparable from the supermarkets, car parks, and 1970s infill, meaning almost any change anywhere must be weighed against the city's 'Outstanding Universal Value.' At the same time, the city is grappling with a record housing crisis: house prices are more than 13 times annual earnings, social housing demand is soaring, and temporary accommodation has reached a 20-year high. Homelessness services like Julian House's Manvers Street hostel operate far beyond capacity, providing nearly 97,000 bed spaces last year alone while struggling to secure their own roof. But Bath's heritage status means it is almost impossible to get anything built. Although Unesco status carries no direct legal force in the UK, it is woven into planning policy through the Bath and North East Somerset Local Plan, which bars development deemed harmful to the 'qualities justifying the inscription' or its setting. In practice, this gives opponents of change a powerful rhetorical weapon: they need only invoke 'Outstanding Universal Value' to wrap their case in the prestige of an international mandate. The result is a permanent, low-level threat – that almost any proposal, however modest, might be cast as an affront to world heritage and fought on those grounds. In 2024, residents were warned that the city's Unesco status was 'at risk' after the council approved the replacement of former industrial units on Wells Road with 77 'co-living' apartments. The planning committee split four to four, with the chair casting the tiebreaker vote in favour. Councillors raised concerns about the building's bulk and potential 'cumulative impact' on the World Heritage Site, with one declaring the city was 'sailing close to the wind with Unesco.' It is extraordinary: a city struggling to house its own people, yet officials can menace its international status over a modest block of flats. Meanwhile, residents in nearby Saltford – whose own Grade II* Saltford Manor dates to the 12th century and is thought to be Britain's oldest continuously inhabited house – watch as Bath's tight planning restrictions push the housing burden outwards. With 1,300 new homes proposed for its green belt, the village faces development on a scale it can't sustain, without the infrastructure or political protection to resist it. Phil Harding, head of the Saltford Environmental Group and a resident for more than 30 years, recently made headlines when he spoke out about the impact of Bath's World Heritage status on neighbouring communities. 'I'm not against new housing, I'm against putting housing in the wrong place,' he says. Bath, he notes, is already a fantastic city that draws tourists in its own right, and Unesco status 'makes no difference.' The real problem, he adds, is that World Heritage designation makes it 'incredibly hard to build in Bath,' pushing development into nearby villages. Much of the employment for new arrivals will still be in Bath, leaving Saltford to shoulder the burden – green belt land lost, congestion rising, local services stretched – without enjoying the benefits. 'Bath doesn't need World Heritage Status,' he concludes. 'It distorts planning priorities, forcing the city to preserve appearances while shifting the real costs onto neighbouring communities.' It may sound unthinkable, but losing that status is hardly fatal. Liverpool provides the example: once celebrated for its maritime mercantile cityscape, it was stripped of Unesco recognition in 2021 after the agency judged that recent and planned developments had caused an 'irreversible loss' of the site's Outstanding Universal Value. Among the contested projects was Everton FC's new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which required filling in part of the historic dock to accommodate a 52,000-seat arena. Even the Guardian acknowledged it as 'the most striking, ambitious addition to the waterfront since the Three Graces were built in the early 1900s.' The £800 million stadium formed part of a broader £1.3 billion regeneration plan, projected to create over 15,000 jobs and attract more than 1.4 million visitors annually. The city did not crumble: regeneration pressed ahead, docks were revitalised, neighbourhoods transformed and tourism continued to flourish. The lesson is plain – Unesco's imprimatur is not the secret ingredient of urban vitality, and its objections can just as easily hinder development as they can protect it. If Unesco were merely symbolic, that would be one thing. But the status is far from meaningless: it exerts moral and political pressure, informs planning guidance, and lends weight to the opinions of advisory bodies like Historic England. For Bath, this translates into a city where development proposals are scrutinised through the lens of 'Outstanding Universal Value,' with councillors warned that new flats or infrastructure might unsettle international sensibilities. The result is a city frozen in amber, preserved more for the approval of tourists rather than for the people who actually live and work there. So when the America First brigade lashes out at Unesco, it is tempting to roll our eyes. But there is a logic to that disdain. World Heritage labels are increasingly badges for the international jet set, not the local people. The US may be leaving for its own vanity, but the reasoning – that Unesco is corrupt, politicised, and more interested in theatre than preservation – hits the mark. For cities like Bath, the real question isn't whether Unesco might disapprove, but why on earth they should care.
New Statesman
6 minutes ago
- New Statesman
What JD Vance was really doing in Britain this week
Photo byJD Vance is the most underestimated man in Washington. Memes of him with a cartoonishly fat face populate the internet. A recent South Park episode had Donald Trump shouting at a tiny Vance 'Will you get out of here?!' and kicking him off screen. The news that he was turned away from The Bull pub in Oxfordshire this week following a staff mutiny was gleefully reported by American media. Democrats sneer that he is nothing more than a drooling dauphin, simpering and slavish. Vance is certainly going along with Trump's conceits in order to inherit the throne. But this narrative misses that JD Vance is already the prince of the Western right. His trip to England was the surest proof yet that Vance's constituency isn't just to be found in Washington or Ohio – but across the influencers and intellectuals of a tightly bound and unusually loyal transnational reactionary movement. This summer Vance held court in an English 18th-century manor, a forward operating base in his campaign to Maga-ify the British right. Part of his itinerary was set up by the slick Cambridge theologian James Orr and the podcasting former chancellor George Osborne. The less well-known Orr used to do Jordan Peterson's scheduling during his tours of British university campuses. Orr also serves as a Vance interpreter, having been quoted in the Times that Vance has a 'special concern' for the UK. Vance's criticism of the British government, particularly over its backsliding on free speech, seems grounded in a paternal feeling for America's errant ward. For these precious weeks Vance has come in-person, here to help guide the country onto stronger ground. The line between what counts as an official trip and a family holiday has blurred under Trump's administration. One of Vance's first 'official' trips was to the Vatican – where Vance, a Catholic convert, met Pope Francis – and to India with his family, the birthplace of his wife's parents. Meanwhile, the president invites world leaders to attend to him at his Scottish golf course. Informality takes precedence over diplomatic protocol. But while Trump invited Keir Starmer and Ursula Von der Leyen to Turnberry, Vance can look to the future. His guestlist showed he is interested in a new generation, one which will be ushered in under his tutelage. On 11 August, Vance hosted a small reception, organised by Osborne. Four Conservative MPs were there, all relatively young, and none the party leader: Robert Jenrick, Laura Trott, Chris Philp and Katie Lam, who recently clocked nearly one million views on X with a video illustrating mass migration with a jar overflowing with beads. Kemi Badenoch and Vance insisted diary clashes explain her absence. Under normal circumstances, you'd think someone who wants to be prime minister would make a trip to see the person most likely to be the next president of the United States. On 13 August, the vice-president instead met the person most likely to be the next prime minister. He hosted Nigel Farage for a one-on-one breakfast which Farage described to the Telegraph as 'two old friends meeting with many, many common interests. After all, I've been the longest public supporter of Maga in Britain.' Despite this 'old' friendship, Farage is not a recipient of the ultimate honour: the only one of these political guests Vance follows on his X account is Robert Jenrick. And Vance's online habits have taken to even more unexpected corners of British internet culture. He also follows Thomas Skinner, the former Apprentice candidate and self-made English influencer known for his catchphrase 'bosh'. Skinner was a guest at the manor for a barbecue on the evening of 10 August, alongside Orr and the Tory MP Danny Kruger. This is unusual. Imagine Dick Cheney eating ribs with David Davis, Ann Widdecombe, Robert Kilroy-Silk, and a young Michael Gove at a rented cottage in Salcombe. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Vance once said that Kruger's 2023 book on Britain, Covenant, has 'lessons for all of us who love the civilization built by our ancestors'. In a fragment, here is Vance's conflicted affection for England. The view that the ancestral home has been wrecked by liberal progressivism and mass immigration is a common thread in Maga. Steve Bannon once remarked to me: 'It's so pathetic, England. God, I love England – it's so fucked up'. In a column for the Wall Street Journal to mark Vance's visit, Orr claimed that the 'historical heuristic for our [Britain's] national unwinding is Beirut 1975'. That's a soft, almost cryptic way of saying that Britain is heading for a civil war fought along ethno-religious lines. This sense that Britain needs radical reform is what explains Vance's guestlist. Jenrick not only shares a physiognomy – a stout moon-shaped face, topped with closely cropped dark hair – with Vance (at least before Jenrick's Ozempic glow-up); both men have moved gradually but decidedly from liberal conservatism to the radical right, fuelled by civilisational angst at the extraordinary number of migrants who have arrived in Europe and America in recent decades. Another term for their beliefs is national conservatism. And it's not just a belief system: 'national conservatism' might be seen as a byword for this network of individuals, one which can unite theological grandees, international statesmen – and ambitious politicians. The same network of ideas and influence will be on display in Washington DC in September when the National Conservative Conference will take place. This is the sixth annual gathering, the brainchild of the American-Israeli political thinker Yoram Hazony. Vance, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump adviser Stephen Miller have all attended in the past. The conferences are organised by Hazony's Edmund Burke Foundation, who have a UK branch, chaired by none other than Orr. Hazony recently told the New York Times that National Conservatism distinguishes itself in two directions: from the libertarians in the Republican Party to their left and the racist and anti-democratic figures to their right. Farage, who is listed as a conference speaker, has long said something similar about creating a wall between himself and people such as Tommy Robinson. Yet there are other speakers far to the right of most on Vance's guestlist: Jeremy Carl, the man trying to revive white identity politics; Jack Posobiec, a Bannon ally who once called for the overthrow of democracy; Jonathan Keeperman, an influential figure on the online right who runs Passage Press, a publishing company that prints forgotten books by reactionary authors (Ernst Jünger, HP Lovecraft) alongside contemporary writers popular with Maga intellectuals (Curtis Yarvin, Steve Sailer). One forthcoming NatCon panel will discuss how to overturn the Supreme Court ruling which legalised gay marriage in America. Does the British right have anything useful to learn from this crew? Apart from one Farage foray into abortion rights, the social issues that rivet America have little grasp in the UK. And while Skinner might like to tweet occasionally about going to church, the Catholicism of Vance and his political allies is dedicated and doctrinaire. As Ross Douthat, the Catholic New York Times columnist who interviewed Vance at the Vatican in May, told me, 'If you're going to be a Christian in the intelligentsia, it feels like Catholicism or nothing.' A paradox of American secularism is that religion is also a font of political philosophy. That is not the case in Westminster. Kruger's evangelical Christianity is unusual in parliament. But outside the Commons, perhaps the most influential evangelical is Paul Marshall, the owner of the Spectator and co-owner of GB News. Marshall met Vance on 12 August. Yet few in England would cite the Archbishop of Canterbury as a political inspiration. Roger Scruton plays the role of in-house philosopher for British conservatives much more than Pope Benedict XVI. But religiosity is not a precondition for national conservatism. English national conservatism will always be couched in English culture. Progressives' adoption of woke politics, exemplified by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, was the last significant American political import into Britain. Is Vance leading what could be the next? There is no JD Vance analogue in the country. But this son of Scots-Irish America is assembling the English shards of himself, from the religious intellectual pondering integralism, to the Essex hillbilly with the common touch. National conservatism has the inventory to hand a wily politician both a populist playbook and at the same time an elite intellectual hinterland to serve as a guiding philosophy. One suspects Vance dished out some advice to his guests while in the Cotswolds on how to use this very modern synthesis to fuel Britain with the same forces he and Trump are using to reshape America. [See also: The Cotswolds plot against JD Vance] Related
The Guardian
6 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Love in a cold climate: Putin romances Trump in Alaska with talk of rigged elections and a trip to Moscow
That was the moment he knew it was true love. Donald Trump turned to gaze at Vladimir Putin as the Russian president publicly endorsed his view that, had Trump been president instead of Joe Biden, the war in Ukraine would never have happened. 'Today President Trump was saying that if he was president back then, there would be no war, and I'm quite sure that it would indeed be so,' Putin said. 'I can confirm that.' Vladimir, you complete me, Trump might have replied. To hell with all those Democrats, democrats, wokesters, fake news reporters and factcheckers. Here is a man who speaks my authoritarian alternative facts language. The damned doubters had been worried about Friday's big summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a cold war-era airbase under a big sky and picturesque mountains on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. They feared that it might resemble Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler in Munich 1938, or Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin carving up the world for the great powers at the Yalta Conference in 1945. It was worse than that. Trump, 79, purportedly the most powerful man in the world, literally rolled out the red carpet for a Russian dictator indicted for alleged war crimes over the abduction and transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children. Putin's troops have also been accused of indiscriminate murder, rape and torture on an appalling scale. In more than 100 countries, the 72-year-old would have been arrested the moment he set foot on the tarmac. In America, he was treated to a spontaneous burst of applause from the waiting Trump, who gave him a long, lingering handshake and a ride in 'the Beast', the presidential limousine. Putin could be seen cackling on the back seat, looking like the cat who got the cream. As a former KGB man, did he leave behind a bug or two? Three hours later, the men walked on stage for an anticlimactic 12-minute press conference against a blue backdrop printed with the words 'Pursuing peace'. Putin is reportedly 170cm (5.7ft) tall, while Trump is 190cm (6.3ft), yet the Russian seemed be the dominant figure. Curiously, given that the US was hosting, Putin was allowed to speak first, which gave him the opportunity to frame the narrative. More curiously still, the deferential Trump spoke for less time than his counterpart, though he did slip in a compliment: 'I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin – with Vladimir.' The low-energy Trump declined to take any questions from reporters – a rare thing indeed for the attention monster and wizard of 'the weave' – and shed little light on the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine. Perhaps he wanted to give his old pals at Fox News the exclusive. Having snubbed the world's media, Trump promptly sat down and spilled the beans – well, a few of them – to host Sean Hannity, a cheerleader who has even spoken at a Trump rally. The president revealed: 'Vladimir Putin said something – one of the most interesting things. He said: 'Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting … No country has mail-in voting. It's impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.' 'And he said that to me because we talked about 2020. He said: 'You won that election by so much and that's how we got here.' He said: 'And if you would have won, we wouldn't have had a war. You'd have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead. And he said: 'You lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election.'' In other words, the leader of one of the world's oldest democracies was taking advice from a man who won last year's Russian election with more than 87% of the vote and changed the constitution so he can stay in power until 2036. In this warped retelling of history, the insurrectionists of January 6 were actually trying to stop a war. Evidently Putin knows that whispering Trump's favourite lies into his ear is the way to his heart. It worked. The Russian leader, visiting the United States for the first time in a decade, got his wish of being welcomed back on the world stage and made to look the equal of the US president. He could also go home reassured that, despite a recent rough patch, and despite Trump's brief bromance with Elon Musk, he loves you yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Next time in Moscow,' he told Trump in English. 'Oh, that's an interesting one,' the US president responded. 'I'll get a little heat on that one, but I could see it possibly happening.' Trump's humiliation was complete. But all was not lost. At least no one was talking about Jeffrey Epstein or the price of vegetables.
