Trevor Noah Addresses Breonna Taylor Settlement on ‘The Daily Show’

The family of Breonna Taylor just reached a $12 million settlement with the city of Louisville that includes common-sense reforms to the city’s police department — a move that Trevor Noah praised on The Daily Show, but said the victory felt bittersweet.

The reforms include a housing credit for officers to live in the low-income communities where they police, the inclusion of paramedics and social workers on police runs and a requirement for commanding officers to review search warrants before an officer seeks a judicial warrant. Noah praised the reforms as possible solutions to addressing police accountability and civilian safety, although he admitted that they could have gone farther.

“Officers will now be incentivized to live in the communities that they police, which is a step in the right direction, but I’ll be honest with you, I can’t believe that police are allowed to live outside the areas that they patrol,” Noah said. “You would think they’d have a vested interest if they police the places that they’re from. It’s like the president not living in the country that he’s in charge of — which I know, technically, Putin does with America, but you know what I’m saying.”

On top of that, although this was the largest settlement over police brutality that the city of Louisville has ever paid out, none of the money came directly from the police department.

“The thing that’s always messed up about these settlements is that it’s never paid by the police, who did something wrong,” Noah noted. “It’s paid by the city, which means taxpayers are being punished for the crimes committed against them — which, I think we can all agree, is some bullshit.” He added that police would be “less likely to play fast and loose” if they knew their own funding was on the line.

Furthermore, it shouldn’t have taken yet another black person getting killed for the Louisville Police Department to reform — “The best time to install a smoke detector is not while your house is on fire,” Noah said.

Later on, Noah was joined by Big Sean for a discussion of his new album Detroit 2, how his mental health struggles inform the honesty in his lyrics and his experience working with Dave Chappelle, who appeared on the new record.

“He offered not only to open a show for me but to donate his whole proceeds,” Sean said. “For him to be that real and that human, I just appreciate him for that.”