Trevor Noah draws Trump’s ire after Grammys jokes about President Nicki Minaj

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Trevor Noah once again wandered into the audience during his monologue to open the Grammy Awards, teasing the stars while standing right next to them, but saving his most obvious jokes for those absent, and sparking an angry post from the president.

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“Nicki Minaj is not here,” Noah said to huge cheers from the crowd in Crypto.com Arena. “She remains in the White House with Donald Trump discussing very important issues.”

Minaj visited and praised the president this week, a culmination of the MAGA move she’s made in recent months.

Noah broke into a Trump impression. “Actually Nikki, I’m the one with the big ass, everyone says so Nikki.”

In his sixth time hosting the show — and what he says will be his last — Noah was mostly risk-averse during his monologue, and didn’t often delve into much politics or controversy, at least during his monologue. There was no mention of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (on a night when many attendees wore “ICE OUT” buttons).

But Noah got more attention later in the show, after Billie Eilish won song of the year.

“Awesome. This is the Grammy every artist wants, almost as much as Trump wants Greenland. Which makes sense. I mean, since Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new island to spend with Bill Clinton,” Noah said.

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After the presentation in the Truth Social post, Trump reacted.

“Noah said, incorrectly about me, that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein’s island. WRONG!!! I can’t speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein’s island, nor anywhere near it, and until tonight’s false and defamatory statement, I have never been accused of being there, not even by the fake news media,” the post read. “Noah, you’re a total loser, he’d better get his facts straight, and get them straight. Looks like I’m going to be sending my lawyer to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, drugged-out broadcaster.”

After the audience’s reaction to the joke during the show, Noah said: “Oh, I told you, it’s my senior year. What are you going to do about it?”

At a different point in the show, Noah joked about the president’s penchant for suing TV networks when he said the Grammys were being broadcast “entirely live” because “if we edited out any part of the show, the president would sue CBS for $16 billion,” referring to Trump’s recent history with CBS News and the settlement he received from Paramount last summer.

It seemed at first that he would not delve too deeply into such material.

Lauryn Hill was performing on the show for the first time since 1999, he said during the monologue.

“Do you understand how long it has been?” He said. “In 1999, the president faced a sex scandal, people thought computers were about to destroy the world, and Diddy was arrested.”

Later in the show, Noah approached the biggest nominee of the night, Kendrick Lamar, and just congratulated him.

“I actually thought about writing some jokes that offend you, but then I remembered what you can do with light-skinned men from other countries,” Noah, who is from South Africa, said in reference to Lamar’s feud with Canadian rapper Drake, which won a major Grammy award last year with the title “Not Like Us.”

Later, he sat down with Bad Bunny, asking him if he could live with him in his native Puerto Rico if things went wrong in the United States.

“Trevor, I have some news for you,” Bad Bunny said. “Puerto Rico is part of America.”

The Recording Academy announced less than three weeks ago that Noah would be returning “one last time.”

“I believe in term limits,” Noah said during the show.

Only singer Andy Williams, who hosted the Grammys seven times in the 1970s, has hosted the ceremony more than once.

Noah himself is a four-time Grammy Award nominee, and this year he’s up for Best Audiobook Recording for the children’s story “Into The Uncut Grass.” He lost to the Dalai Lama.