Washington, D.C. — Following the slew of NFL protests this weekend and choice tweets from President Donald Trump in response, Michele Jawando and Igor Volsky, co-hosts of the Thinking CAP podcast, sat down with Hasan Minhaj, senior correspondent on “The Daily Show” and well-known for his stand-up Netflix special,“Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King,” to have an honest conversation about the rhetoric and sentiment that the Trump administration has peddled toward people of color—Muslims and immigrants, in particular—over the course of his candidacy and presidency. Minhaj discussed the role that his unique experience as a second-generation American plays in his comedy and responded to recent displays of anti-immigrant and anti-black sentiment from the sitting president.
“A lot of the [NFL] debates are around the semantics of ‘Do you kneel? Do you lock arms? Do you put your hand on a shoulder?’” said Minhaj on the podcast.“Unfortunately that’s detracting from the larger conversation that I think Kap [Colin Kaepernick] was having in the first place, was the way African Americans are being treated in this country in regards to police brutality and racism.”
On Kathy Griffin’s controversial comedy, Minhaj responded, “Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. … I think that if you are a little bit more tactical and surgical with your approach, in other words taking down the opposition’s argument point by point in a tactful, cerebral way. I think that’s a lot more of an effective tool than sometimes being just sort of bombastic and holding a severed head.”
The interview with Hasan Minhaj is part of a series of comedic interviews lined up for the podcast this fall, hoping to lighten the mood after months of resistance, civic activism, policy upheaval, and frequent Friday night news drops out of the Trump White House. The podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, and CAP’s website.
For more information on guest booking, please contact Sally Tucker at 202.481.8103 or [email protected].