Trump, Trevor Noah and the thin skin of power

There was a moment during the 68th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday when Trevor Noah paused, looked out at the audience, and decided that if this really was his last time hosting the ceremony, he might as well make it count. Introducing the Song of the Year award, Noah described it as “a Grammy that every artist wants. Almost as much as Trump wants Greenland”, before adding that the US President’s interest made sense because “Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton”.

The joke landed. It always was going to. It combined three things Americans have come to recognise instantly: Donald Trump’s territorial ambitions, Jeffrey Epstein’s grotesque legacy, and the long, uncomfortable proximity between power, wealth and impunity.

Within hours, Trump had responded in the way he so often does, with characteristic indignant rage. Posting on his Truth Social platform, he branded Noah a “poor, pathetic, talentless dope of an MC”, insisted he had never been to Epstein’s island, and threatened legal action. “I’ll be sending my lawyers,” he wrote, promising to sue Noah for “plenty$”.

[paywall]

It was a familiar performance. Loud, personalised, and thin-skinned. But it also revealed something more telling about the current political moment: the increasing fragility of powerful men confronted not by courts or journalists, but by comedians.

Noah’s gag came at a time when the release of new tranches of documents, the so-called Epstein files, has once again dragged elite associations into the light. The files include references to numerous public figures, Trump and Bill Clinton among them. Both have denied wrongdoing and deny visiting Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where children were sexually abused.

Legally speaking, Noah’s joke was broad, satirical and hardly novel. Trump’s name has long been entangled with Epstein’s in the public imagination, as has Clinton’s. The idea that a throwaway awards-show line could constitute defamation feels less like a legal argument than a political gesture.

And yet the threat matters, precisely because it is unlikely to succeed. Trump has spent much of his second term lashing out at late-night hosts and entertainers who criticise him, particularly those whose platforms still reach mass audiences. Stephen Colbert, whose Late Show was cancelled last year amid controversy over CBS’s parent company settling a lawsuit with Trump, has been a frequent target.

Jimmy Kimmel was briefly suspended by ABC after a controversial joke, a move Trump celebrated while urging regulators to punish the network further. What links these moments is not simply Trump’s dislike of being mocked. It is his increasing willingness to use the language of litigation, regulation and punishment to respond to speech he finds offensive.

That makes Noah an interesting figure in this story. A South African comedian hosting one of America’s most visible cultural rituals, he has always occupied a strange in-between space. Insider enough to hold the microphone, outsider enough to name the absurdities of power.

His decision to joke about Epstein at the Grammys was not accidental. It was the kind of remark that signalled awareness of the room, the moment, and the limits of decorum. It also came on a night when the ceremony itself leaned openly political.

Artists wore anti-ICE pins. Winners spoke about immigration, displacement and belonging. Billie Eilish declared that “no one is illegal on stolen land”. Bad Bunny bluntly told the audience: “ICE out.”

[/paywall]