Trevor Noah had a pretty good reaction to a campaign ad ran by U.S. Senator John Kennedy, a right-wing Republican from Louisiana, and it involved creating a TV show that honestly we’d probably watch: “CSI: Crack Smoking Investigators.”
An ad Kennedy is currently running in his home state leans hard on his love and support for cops and his opposition to something no one has done — defund the police. And at the end of the clip, Kennedy says, “If you hate cops just because they’re cops, the next time you get in trouble, call a crackhead.”
Noah played this ad during a run-down of some of the weirder campaign commercials this fall on Tuesday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” and he had a hard time believing what he saw.
“OK. OK. First of all, no one is gonna ‘call’ a crackhead. It’s 2022, I’m gonna text a crackhead,” Noah joked.
“The senator is acting like cop and crackhead are the only two options. That’s it. What about social workers? What about mental health experts? What about heroin addicts? There’s a whole range, people,” Noah continued.
“It’s also weird for a guy who’s been in office six years, to complain about crime, and then campaign on it. I find it a little strange, like,” Noah said, before adopting a fake Southern accent, “ever since I got into office, crime has exploded! Re-elect me so I can figure out what’s going on.”
Noah also questioned the logic of the Republican calls for ever-more policing. “No matter what happens, Republicans always want more cops,” he said. “Crime goes up, we need more cops. Crime is down, we need more cops. What, is the plan just to keep hiring until we’re all cops?”
Then Noah got to the good TV show idea: “Maybe the solution is to hire crackhead cops. Yeah, because first of all, they’re always there when you need them. And say what you will about cops vs. crackheads, but at least the crackhead is not gonna plant crack on you. They’re keeping it for themselves. It works out.”
“I know it might be a little crazy, but you gotta admit, a crackhead detective show? That sounds like a great idea for a ‘CSI’ spinoff,” Noah said, which cued up a bit where he pretended to be that cop. “The victim is on the table, next to the flowers that he bought for Valentine’s day. I guess that means it’s time to go…” Noah said as he donned sunglasses to set up a “CSI: Miami’”-inspired joke, “smoke some crack.”
There’s more — Noah also looked at some other ads, and talked about a variety of other topics. You can watch the entire segment of “The Daily Show” in the link above — the stuff we emphasized here kicks in about 3 minutes in.
