Saturday Star

Good manners prevail as Trevor hosts Tomi

- THE WASHINGTON POST

signature – go to supporting Farm Sanctuary SA’s mission to “inform and inspire positive change in the way society views and treats farm animals.”

Lefson said consumers could help support the cause by understand­ing where their meat products come from and refusing to support industries that mistreat animals.

In addition to Pigcasso, the sanctuary is a refuge for Baloo, a rock-and-roll loving cow who was rescued from an informal settlement along the N2, and two other pigs, another cow and many chickens.

* Pigcasso’s first exhibition will be held in February or March in Cape Town at a venue yet to be determined. All proceeds will go to Farm Sanctuary SA. THE Daily Show is trying to do something about the liberal media echo chamber. Trevor Noah invited conservati­ve commentato­r Tomi Lahren on his show on Wednesday night for a lengthy debate, during which the two hashed out everything from Black Lives Matter to the Affordable Care Act to Donald Trump’s hotmic recording.

Lahren is the host of TheBlaze’s Tomi, and Noah showed a clip of her show to give his audience – who quite possibly had never seen her series – a little introducti­on to her viewpoints. Coming across as an enraged version of Hayden Panettiere, Lahren railed against protesters (“Crybabies with nothing better to do”), Occupy Wall Street “brats” and the “militant” Black Lives Matter movement.

“Why are you so angry?” Noah asked after the clip rolled.

“I’m actually not that angry,” she responded. “It’s just that there are things that need to be said, Trevor, and a lot of people are afraid to say them.”

Lahren, who said that being on his show was basically coming into the lion’s den, seemed understand­ably more nervous than Noah, who maintained the same ultra-calm tone for most of the interview. The back-and-forth was more reasonable than most of the presidenti­al debates, at least, with both sides giving impassione­d responses to one another in comprehens­ible English.

Lahren admitted that what Trump said to Billy Bush about making unwanted sexual advances on women was indefensib­le, but maintained that – even though she was a self-proclaimed Marco Rubio girl – once Trump was the Republican nominee, she had no choice but to support him.

“It was not a good day for Trump supporters,” she said of the tape release. “But I’m still comparing someone who said some nasty things, to a woman (Hillary Clinton) who has done nasty things.”

When Noah asked her what her intention was with hosting her show, she said she wanted to give a voice to the people ignored by the coasts, who might be too afraid to speak out for fear of being labelled.

“You can call me whatever the hell you want, I won’t back down,” Lahren promised.

But Noah got a few digs in. When Lahren said she believed Trump was levelheade­d and reasonable, Noah asked: “Do you have Twitter?” And when she claimed she doesn’t see colour – which stirred up the audience – The Daily Show host asked her what she does at traffic lights.

“For somebody who’s not racist, you have to spend a lot of time saying, ‘ I’m not racist’,” he told her, but she maintained her cool.

After a discussion of her criticism of Colin Kaepernick’s personal form of peaceful protest, she even offered to have the 49-ers quarterbac­k on her show.

The only time she seemed especially rattled was when Noah told her that, with Trump’s win, she was now part of the mainstream media. Of course, like every other topic, the two ultimately just agreed to disagree. Neither made much headway in convincing the other to flipflop, and both held their own enough so that liberals could have seen Noah as the victor while conservati­ves could have claimed Lahren won.

When Noah asked Lahren if there was any misconcept­ion about her she wished she could clear up, she said: “I wish we could disagree with each other without (people) thinking that we are bad people or ill-intentione­d folks.”

In the end, that was the point of the spectacle: to show that two people with opposing views can have a relatively civil conversati­on. They can even publicly support each other on Twitter:

“Thank you for being my guest Tomi. Our goal should be to destroy these ‘bubbles’, not each other. You’re always welcome on my show.”

“To my fans: Trevor Noah is not a douche or a jerk. To Trevor’s fans: I’m not a bitch or c**t. We are people with opposing views. That’s it.”

 ??  ?? Joanne Lefson drove all the way from Franschhoe­k to Camps Bay to demonstrat­e the painting skills of her pig, Pigcasso. Here she is with Pigcasso at Maiden’s Cove, Camps Bay (above) and at work (below). Pictures: Tracey Adams
Joanne Lefson drove all the way from Franschhoe­k to Camps Bay to demonstrat­e the painting skills of her pig, Pigcasso. Here she is with Pigcasso at Maiden’s Cove, Camps Bay (above) and at work (below). Pictures: Tracey Adams
 ??  ?? Tomi Lahren and Trevor Noah on The Daily Show.
Tomi Lahren and Trevor Noah on The Daily Show.

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