Trevor Noah Debuts on the “Daily Show” With Pledge to Continue “War on Bullshit”


Last night, Trevor Noah premiered as the new host of the Daily Show with a fresh round of jokes about the pope’s recent visit to the United States and John Boehner’s surprise decision to resign as House speaker late last week.

But before diving into the news of the hour, the South African comedian used his opening monologue to thank Jon Stewart for the opportunity and promised to continue fighting his predecessor’s 16-year “war on bullshit.”

“Jon Stewart was more than just a late-night host,” Noah said. “He was often our voice, our refuge, and in many ways our political dad. It’s weird, because Dad has left and now it feels like the family has a new stepdad—and he’s black.”

“Thank you, John,” he continued. “Thank you for believing in me. I’m not quite sure what you saw in me, but I’ll work hard everyday to find it. And I’ll make you not look like the crazy old dude who left his inheritance to some random kid from Africa.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

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