‘People feel terrible. They want to laugh’: can comedy make light of Trump 2.0?

A second Donald Trump presidency may be darker than the first, but his victory has unleashed the creative energies of satirists and standups

“When Trump first won, there was almost a novelty to having a character such as him in a position of such vast responsibility – that was a new thing for comedy to address,” said Andy Zaltzman, chair of Radio 4’s The News Quiz and the satirist behind The Bugle podcast and multiple political comedies.

The first Trump presidency spawned debate about whether it’s possible to satirise a man whose extreme appearance and rhetoric mean he presents as a walking caricature. The New York Times even ran a piece titled “How President Trump ruined political comedy”.