Trevor Noah compliments Lightfoot’s PSAs that he ‘didn’t even think were real’ on ‘The Daily Show’

“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah loves Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s PSAs. In fact, he said he initially thought they were too funny to be real.

The comedian gave Lightfoot the compliment during her appearance on the Comedy Central show Wednesday night.

“Some of the PSAs that you started releasing were some of the funniest, that I didn’t even think were real until I realized they actually came from you,” said Noah via video call.

His favorite part? “Telling all the kids that are still going out to play basketball: ‘Your jump shot is not gonna improve, stay home,’” he told the mayor with a smile.

Lightfoot said her PSAs — one encouraging folks to stay home during the shutdown, and another urging Chicagoans to fill out their census forms — were inspired by the viral memes that popped up after she closed down the lakefront, and by her constituents’ need for entertainment at a time when there are no sports to watch or concerts to go to.

“Giving people hope, and using humor, it’s a great way to break through the noise and reach people,” she said.

Noah asked the mayor more specific questions about the city’s fight against the coronavirus. He brought up recent reports that COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting African American communities in Chicago, and asked what the city has been doing about it.

“As we started to see these numbers we took a couple of steps,” Lightfoot said. “We mandated that all providers who are doing testing provide demographic information.

“The other thing that we’ve done is made sure that we’re reaching out to these communities ... and we’ve formed a racial equity rapid response team right away.”

Noah said one policy in Chicago that specifically caught his attention has been the city’s partnership with Uber and Lyft to create a hotline for people who need to escape from domestic violence while stay-at-home orders are still in effect.

“We know that domestic violence is a problem in the best of times, and we were concerned about seeing an uptick,” Lightfoot told Noah.

Lightfoot said the city partnered with the two ride-share companies to provide domestic violence hotline workers with a special code that people can use to order a ride to safety.

“It’s a very simple and straightforward thing, but we thought that was really important,” Lightfoot said. “We didn’t want the absence of a ride to be a reason why somebody felt compelled to stay in a dangerous domestic situation.”