Celebs defend new ‘Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah’s controversial tweets

A number of prominent comedians and celebrities rushed to the defense of The Daily Show's next host, Trevor Noah, after offensive tweets about women and Jews came to light.

Noah, whose mother is half-Jewish, called the tweets in question "a handful of jokes that didn't land":

While some, like Roseanne Barr, are criticizing Noah for his "sexist & anti semitic 'humor' about jewish women and Israel," many others are defending the comedian -- with Patton Oswalt being the most vehement among them.

In a 53-tweet diatribe, Oswalt gave a full accounting of all the possible offense a comedian could give for making a joke about butterflies, then signed off by writing:

Others joined in his defense:

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi defended his future boss, calling the controversy "much ado about nothing."

"There’s a reason why Jon Stewart stays off social media," he said. "He also doesn’t need to be on social media. Here’s the thing: Once Trevor Noah takes the chair of The Daily Show, he’s going to have a huge platform to say all kinds of things that he wants to say. Jon Stewart actually said once, I don’t need to be on Twitter or Facebook because I’m on television four nights a week."

As to the accusations of anti-Semitism made by Barr and others, Mandvi said, "once a month, we have Katz’s Deli deliver food for the show. If he cancels that, he’s anti-Semitic. If we don’t get the Katz’s deli, he hates Jews."