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South Park is back, and the show’s creators are going full force on their jabs at the Trump administration. Three episodes in, the show’s world-building centers fully around President Donald Trump and the colorful characters in his administration, with scathing parodies of figures like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance.

While Matt Stone and Trey Parker are known for directing crude jokes at Democrats and Republicans alike, South Park’s latest season is already hitting record ratings with an especially unrestrained critique of the Trump administration. Since the new season launched, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers has tried to dismiss the jabs, saying that South Park “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”

South Park’s latest season is launching in the context of interesting times for Comedy Central’s parent company, Paramount Pictures. Paramount has been under intense scrutiny from the Trump administration after settling a lawsuit with the Trump administration over their news magazine show 60 Minutes. Since then, the Trump administration oversaw Paramount’s deal with Skydance, which requires CBS to hire an ombudsman to root out “bias” at the network.

Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Brian Stelter, chief media analyst at CNN, about how South Park’s latest season is taking aim at the Trump administration, and how the show’s creators are navigating the context of their parent company seemingly buckling under the Trump administration’s scrutiny.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a fan of South Park?

I would call myself a passive South Park fan. If I saw it on Comedy Central, I would enjoy it. But now, in the past month, I am an active fan. I’m seeking out new episodes.This show has defied the odds. It’s almost 30 years old and suddenly more relevant than ever.

How did it defy the odds?

By speaking truth to the ultimate power right now. You know, the creators of South Park have always hated bullies, and they seem to believe Trump is the biggest bully of them all. The very premise of the first episode of this new season is about Trump targeting the media.The character Eric Cartman is angry that NPR has been forced off the air. From the very first seconds of the new season, you know that this show has something to say.

You also see how South Park Elementary is being transformed due to Trump’s actions. This is a dramatic exaggeration of what’s happening in real life, but it is true. When Trump is introduced in the show, you see him fighting with the Prime Minister of Canada over tariffs. But most memorably you see him getting in bed with Satan.

I’m gonna use some words I don’t typically use on the show right now to describe that particular scene, because Trump derobes. Before you even see who he is about to get into bed with, we see that he has a micro penis. How do they follow that up?

The most ruthless jokes in the second episode were about Kristi Noem. They were about that old scandal involving her shooting a dog on her farm. You saw her over and over again in this episode shooting at dogs. This episode was really personal in the way it targeted Noem, showing her face maybe falling apart, pushing this idea that she was overusing Botox or other face fillers. Also, there’s the idea that she cares so much about photo ops and PR, she’s always out there dressing up in various outfits, posing for photos and videos. And as always, there are elements of truth to these critiques or satires.

It is true that Noem has tried really hard to be front and center, very visible, playing to the cameras, going out on tours, appearing in the field, showing that she’s doing the work, so to speak.

Noem did not take this episode in stride. She said, “It’s so lazy to make fun of women and how they look.” For Noem, this was personal, this was ugly. And she wanted to be on the record about it.

Is this the first time this show has gone after Donald Trump and his administration?

No, but it is by far the most direct, the most vicious. Back during Trump’s first term in office, there was this storyline where one of the teachers at the school, Mr. Garrison, was becoming president and over time acting more and more Trump-like. This served as a way for the creators of South Park to ridicule Trump and to speak out about some of his behaviors and conduct in the first term. But this was not nearly as direct or aggressive as what we’re seeing now.

I guess it’s not that big a surprise that South Park would go after Donald Trump when he is Donald Trumping harder than he is ever Donald Trumped before.
Yes.
But they’re not even sparing their parent company in these new episodes, right?

Matt and Trey are like a lot of creators in that they love to poke fun at the parent company when they can. The timing of this new season has been really extraordinary because Paramount was in the final days of this protracted, politically tortured merger approval process when the new season premiered.

So you literally had this anti-Trump episode, sticking it to the administration, putting the president in bed with Satan, airing on cable at the same time that the administration is having to review and approve this merger.

The second episode of the season aired on a Wednesday, and then on a Thursday the new Paramount took shape. The merged company, Paramount and Skydance, came together. There was this big formal press conference on Thursday around lunchtime in New York City and the new CEO David Ellison took questions from media reporters about his grand hopes and dreams about this new company.

I said to him, “So what about this South Park problem? You know, what are you gonna do about this problem? Do you view it as a problem?” Ellison’s response was really telling. He started out by saying he’s a huge fan of the show. He’s been a fan of South Park for his entire adult life. He’s 42, and he then went on to praise Matt and Trey as being really unique, talented creators. And he said to me, they are equal opportunity offenders, and they always have been.

So I think Ellison was saying: They’re not just targeting Trump because they’re a bunch of lefties who wanna attack the Republicans. They have always called out people on the left and on the right. They’re equal opportunity offenders. I think he was trying to differentiate South Park from late night shows like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which was recently canceled. I think he was trying to say, these two creators are special. They are one of a kind, and they’re gonna be protected by Paramount.

Obviously the other context here is the new owners of Paramount had just struck a five-year deal to exclusively stream South Park on the Paramount Plus streaming service. This five-year deal is worth well over a billion dollars. For the creators of South Park and for their production company, this is a huge vote of confidence in South Park as a tent pole of the future of Paramount. The whole idea makes a lot of sense when you think about it. South Park has a library of 325 episodes going back to the 1990s. This is a really valuable library in the streaming era, because people like to go back and watch episodes from 10 or 20 years ago. These episodes have a really long shelf life. That’s why Paramount was willing to fork over so much cash.

I think this might be where some people get confused, because you’ve got everyone from Brown University to Meta to CBS and Paramount settling with the president, making donations to the president’s inaugural committee. And then you’ve got Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who work for CBS or do business with Paramount Plus, not only going for the president, not only making fun of his administration, his own manhood, but making literally a billion dollars while doing it. How are they able to get away with something that seemingly no one else is right now?

This might be a case of business actually trumping politics. For the Paramount Plus streaming service, loud franchises like South Park are crucial. They’re more important now than they were 10 years ago, and they might even be more important 10 years from now.

They are the foundation of the house that David Ellison’s trying to build. and he can’t compromise. The difference here between South Park and Stephen Colbert is that The Late Show was losing money. So, yeah, Stephen Colbert is a staunch critic of President Trump, one of the loudest Trump critics on TV. He’s been canceled. A lot of his fans worry it’s for political reasons. CBS says it’s purely for financial reasons, and in a way, South Park actually affirms the CBS claim.

Paramount keeps putting out press releases touting how well South Park is doing. The show is beating some of its very old records on cable. But more importantly, if you add up the cable audience and the streaming audience, you’re seeing 5, 6, 7 million viewers tuning in for these new episodes. Those are the kinds of numbers that almost any creator would kill for, certainly creators of animated comedies.

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