Dave Chappelle kicked off his 16-date Radio City Music Hall residency this week, a run of shows that features a truly impressive roster of special guests including Solange and Childish Gambino. On Wednesday night, Chappelle hit another New York City institution—the Ed Sullivan Theater—to discuss the Trump comments he made during his Emmy-nominated Saturday Night Live appearance and his recent appearance at a town hall in Ohio.
"It's not like I wanted to give him a chance that night," Chappelle told Stephen Colbert of his "I'm going to give him a chance" comment during his SNL monologue last November. Chappelle added that, in the months since the election, many Americans have become tuned into issues they previously gave little thought.
"You know, listen man," he said. "In the last six months, I think we're all getting an education about the presidency. I don't know that I've ever heard in just popular discourse people discussing ethics this much. And I didn't even realize how ethics were necessarily supposed to work at that level of government."
As Colbert explained, it's easy to not really think about something until it's immediately threatened. "Well, nobody really talks about oxygen until somebody's got their hands around your throat," Colbert said, a remark that Chappelle clearly found hilarious.
"Very true," Chappelle said. "But, if you'll remember...the beginning of the monologue, I contextualized it, because I feel like a lot of white Americans finally got to see what an election night looks like for many black Americans every cycle."
Chappelle and Colbert ended the Trump portion of their chat on an optimistic note. Ultimately, Chappelle said , "we'll figure it out."
Watch the rest of Chappelle's Late Show appearance below.
