It has been almost a year since Trevor Noah bid farewell to The Daily Show. In the wake of his new podcast What Now? with Trevor Noah launching Thursday (Nov. 9) on Spotify, Noah spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what he misses most — and least — about the platform.
While he misses “the team and the people [he] worked with everyday,” he highlighted the aspect he misses the least to be “not having the time to process how [he] feel[s] about an issue and giving it time to develop.”
“From the very beginning, I never felt like it’s necessary for us to necessarily engage immediately on every single topic as it is happening before we know everything,” he explained.
He cited the example of “how the news reports on mass shootings,” which he’s “never been a fan of.”
“One minute it’s this, and then it changes, and then the next hour it changes again,” he continued. “It’s not necessary, especially on a nationwide platform. And I feel the same for myself as a human being. I like to take the time to process what’s happening, to see what’s happening and the discourse around it, and then to understand how I can contribute to the conversation without adding to the noise.”
He reiterated this sentiment, noting that the “thing” he misses the least is “people expecting of [him] or the show an immediate response when, in fact, oftentimes the best response is not an immediate one, but one that is a little bit thought out and that considers all the aspects affecting it.”
His podcast’s inaugural guest was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. According to Insider, Noah brought up a 2021 poll that implied 46% of US adults would support Johnson if he ran for office, to which he replied that he “was really moved by that.”
“I was really blown away and I was really honored,” he added.
He also revealed that he “got a visit from the [political] parties” at the end of last year “asking [him] if [he] was going to run, and if [he] could run.”
Although he did not specify which parties, he said that “it was a big deal, and it came out of the blue.”
“It was all very surreal because that’s never been my goal,” he shared. “My goal has never been to be in politics. As a matter of fact, there’s a lot about politics that I hate.”
Last October, he deemed running for president to be “off the table” in an interview on CBS Mornings because being a father is “the most important thing to” him, per Variety. However, he told Noah, “If that’s ultimately what the people would want, then of course I would consider it.”