How should late-night TV cover this U.S. election season?

After former U.S. president Donald Trump was shot in his right ear while speaking at his rally in Pennsylvania this past weekend, there's a chill in the air just as the American presidential race heats up.

Traditionally, audiences have turned to late-night TV hosts for light-hearted and digestible takes on the news of the day. But at a time like this in American politics, what's the role of late-night and political satirists?

Today on Commotion, guest host Rad Simonpillai speaks with comedy reporter Hershal Pandya and comedian Ashley Ray about what the TV genre can offer viewers, and where election season coverage goes from here.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Rad: Ashley, everyone was shocked when they heard the news this weekend. No one has any idea yet how this is going to change the presidential election. What's the role of late-night at a time like this?

Ashley: I think for the American public, these late-night comedy shows really do help us set the tone on how to address these things. Is it OK to laugh? Is this serious? How do we come together? Is this something where we have to look at our high road and take that? I do think we're seeing that sort of response already, where people are going, "This is violence. It doesn't matter that it's Trump. We all need to come together," which I think is sort of the place of these like liberal late-night talk show hosts: to maintain this dream idea of what America is, and how we are better than violence and all of that.

But now, people don't just get their comedy from late-night shows; we get it from TikTok, we get it from Twitter, and I think that's where you're seeing the American ability to make a joke about anything. People are right when they say, "I don't know that this will still be a topic in a week," and that is shocking to me. But I do think these late-night hosts, these traditional comedy establishments are trying to give it the grace of what we used to care about with presidential assassinations in the '70s and '80s. With Gerald Ford and Reagan, it felt real. This, everyone's just kind of like, "OK, his ear?"

Rad: Unreal. Hershal, we were planning to talk about Hasan Minhaj's new show, which is called Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know, and his big move to YouTube away from conventional late-night…. President Joe Biden's age was the headline of Hasan Minhaj's first episode. Remember, Hasan Minhaj is absolutely transparent about his politics; he's very much on the left. But when you amplify the discourse about Joe Biden's age and make that the punch line, does that risk helping Trump?

Hershal: I think as a rule, the reason comedians are making these jokes is because they're resonating with audiences. If the audience didn't find the jokes funny, it would mean they don't identify with the views they're espousing, they would stop laughing, the jokes at bomb and the late-night host would stop making these jokes, right? So at a certain point, it's almost disingenuous not to talk about it because it is on the entire audience's mind. And you can say it might help Trump, but at the end of the day that can't be the basis for never criticizing Joe Biden because at a certain point that is Trumpism, right? We just support something irrespective of their ability or their policies. And so we need to remember that the audience does dictate what these comedians say, and that's why they're talking about it.

Rad: When we're looking at late-night from the past few weeks, there's been almost no mention of Donald Trump. I'm sure the shooting will change that, but let's talk about why the focus up to now has been almost entirely on Biden. Ashley, what do you make of that?

Ashley: I think Biden and the age thing is something you can make fun of. You can also very sincerely speak to the aggravation we feel of why are these our choices? But when it comes to Trump, it really doesn't feel funny. It does feel dangerous to be like, "But guys, he was convicted. Why are we even having this conversation?" The biggest jokes I think I maybe saw mostly on YouTube pundits and Twitter are people talking about his name coming up again in the Epstein files. You can't really talk about that on CBS. That's not good back-and-forth banter with your guest.

I think it's harder to bring up the bad things that Trump has done for a broader audience. I think The Daily Show tries, but mostly on the nights when Jon isn't hosting, so I don't think it has the same impact because people now are like, "Jon Stewart's back to save us." I am really curious to see how he addresses this shooting and what we're going to get on Tuesday. But I think people are tired of laughing at what Trump has done. It's just sort of a, "Can we just be real and can someone make this guy not run?" And now I think we're going to have a lot of jokes.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.