Trevor Noah examines Manchin deal, monkeypox, and Russia announcing it will leave the ISS plus six Emmy nominations for 'The Daily Show' and its spinoffs

I concluded Colbert examines Manchin agreeing to the reconciliation bill that would fight climate change by telling my readers "Stay tuned as I continue examining the Emmy nominees with the categories recognizing "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," possibly as early as tomorrow." I'll do that over the jump, but first I'm sharing three clips from "The Daily Show" about my picks for top stories last week, starting with Manchin Shocks Washington and McConnell with Bill Compromise.

In a surprise turn of events, Sen. Joe Manchin released a statement saying he’s on board with the Inflation Reduction Act, a renamed version of the Build Back Better bill, shocking Washington, D.C. and Mitch McConnell.

I'm being a good environmentalist by recycling what I wrote yesterday for the first part of my reaction.

The good news is that Joe Manchin agreed to a bill that would fight climate change, making it possible to follow the IPCC roadmap to fix climate change. Even better, he helped the Senate Democrats bypass Mitch McConnell, who prides himself on being the Grim Reaper for progressive legislation. I just hope Kyrsten Sinema doesn't gum up the works.

Trevor even mentioned the possibility that Sinema could mess things up. On the other hand, he showed even more enthusiasm for the deal and he and his writers came up with even funnier jokes about it.

That was the good news. "The Daily Show" uploaded two segments featuring bad news last week, beginning with some that Stephen Colbert mentioned, Monkeypox Labeled Global Health Emergency, U.S. Sizzles & Robot Breaks Kid's Finger.

The World Health Organization labels monkeypox a global health emergency, cities across America hit record-breaking temperatures, and a chess-playing robot breaks a 7-year-old's finger.

As I wrote in June, "it looks like I may have been too sanguine about monkeypox." I didn't think it would get this bad. Now I expect it will get worse. I'm also recycling my reaction to Trevor's treatment of the climate and weather news from yesterday's post: "That was grim, but at least we're doing something about climate change now."

Now for Russia Pulls Out of International Space Station & The Pope Issues Historic Apology, which at least opened with good news, even if it got second billing in the subject and description.

Russia announces it will leave the International Space Station, and the pope issues an apology to Canada’s Indigenous people.

I've been worried about the possibility of Russia exiting the ISS since 2014, when I posted Returning without Russia and other space and astronomy news for the Ides of March, but my anxiety became more pronounced this April in Vox explains 'What Russia's war means for the International Space Station' plus DART and Artemis updates. Now we have two more years to figure out what to do. At least the U.S. has crewed spaceflight again, so we aren't dependent on Russia to get to and from the ISS.

Follow over the jump to read about the Emmy nominations for "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" and two of its spinoffs, "Between the Scenes" and "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe - Hungary for Democracy."

I begin this section with the nominations for both of the spinoffs of "The Daily Show" from 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards and the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series
Between the Scenes — The Daily Show (YouTube)
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Presents: Once Upon a Time in Late Night (TBS)
RuPaul's Drag Race Whatcha Packin' with Michelle Visage (VH1)
Saturday Night Live Presents: Stories from the Show (NBC)
Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen (Bravo)

The good news is that Trevor's only Emmy Award was for "Between the Scenes" in 2017, when it won Outstanding Short Form Variety Series, so that makes it a co-favorite in my book with "Saturday Night Live Presents: Stories from the Show." As "Creating Saturday Night Live," that won Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series in 2019. The final variety show nominee is "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Presents: Once Upon a Time in Late Night." At least Sam and her writers got a nomination, even if it wasn't for her main show, which was snubbed once again. The rest of the nominees are from competition shows, so I'll examine this category again when I write about those.

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special
Ali Wong: Don Wong – Ali Wong (Netflix)
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe - Hungary for Democracy – Ian Berger, Devin Delliquanti, Jennifer Flanz, Jordan Klepper, Zhubin Parang, Scott Sherman (Comedy Central)
Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel – Jerrod Carmichael (HBO / HBO Max)
Nicole Byer: BBW (Big Beautiful Weirdo) – Nicole Byer (Netflix)
Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special – Norm Macdonald (Netflix)

While I'm glad to see "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe - Hungary for Democracy" nominated, I doubt it will win. Instead, I think the late Norm Macdonald is the favorite for his final performace, "Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special." I'll get to that when I write about variety specials.

Now for the categories I covered in John Oliver examines inflation plus 'Last Week Tonight's Emmy nominations.

First, the show's two nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO/HBO Max)
Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)

"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" no longer has the most nominations all by itself, which it did for five consecutive years. Both it and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" have five nominations. Add in the spinoff "Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News," which "The Late Show" features on its YouTube channel, and Colbert has six, breaking the tie. While "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" has four nominations for the main show, two of its spinoffs have nominations as well for a total of six. "Late Night with Seth Meyers" finally earned a nomination in this category along with one more for the main show and another for a spinoff, a total of three. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" rounds out the field with a nomination in just this category. Despite its competition earning as many if not more nominations, "Last Week Tonight" is the six-time returning winner, so I think it's still the favorite.

I'm going to paraphrase what I wrote for Colbert yesterday.On the one hand, this is the best year so far for "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," so it's the best chance it's had to win. On the other, its best almost certainly won't be good enough, despite my entries featuring Noahs's show beating "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" last year. On the other, as I noted below, my readers are not members of the Television Academy, as far as I know, so they're not the ones voting. Electorates matter.

Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series
A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO/HBO Max)
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Comedy Central)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO/HBO Max)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)
Saturday Night Live (NBC)

The three top variety talk nominees along with both of the variety sketch nominees earned nominations in this category. While my readers have voted with their page views for "Saturday Night Live" over "Last Week Tonight" during the past year, they're not the Emmy voters, who have awarded the writers for "Last Week Tonight" the Emmy statuette the past six years. I still think that will happen again. Remember, electorates matter.

I'm a lot less pessimistic about "The Daily Show" taking home Emmy statuettes in the next two categories.

Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming (Area) A Black Lady Sketch Show: "Save My Edges, I'm A Donor!" – Stephanie Filo, Bradinn French, Taylor Joy Mason, and S. Robyn Wilson (HBO / HBO Max)
Conan: "Series Finale" – Robert James Ashe, Mike Api, Christopher P. Heller, and Matthew Shaw (TBS)
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: "Jordan Klepper Takes On 'Wellness' Anti-Vaxxers + Fringewatching Rep. Lauren Boebert" – Storm Choi, Eric Davies, Tom Favilla, Lauren Beckett Jackson, Nikolai Johnson, Ryan Middleton, Mark Paone, Erin Shannon, Catherine Trasborg, and Einar Westerlund (Comedy Central)
Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts – Simon Bryant, Jim Clark, James Collett, Bill DeRonde, Asaf Eisenberg, Will Gilby, Lior Linevitz–Matthews, Pablo Noe, Tim Perniciaro, and Jacob Proctor (HBO / HBO Max)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: "The Confesstigators" (segment) – Anthony Miale (HBO / HBO Max)

While this category was one of the first Emmy Awards "Last Week Tonight" won, it lost last year to "Black Lady Sketch Show." It's still a strong contender, not least because this is now an area award.

Area awards are non-competitive; any nominee with at least 90% approval receives an Emmy. If no nominee receives 90% approval, the nominee with the highest approval receives an Emmy; for area awards in picture editing and sound mixing, there is an additional requirement that the highest-rated nominee must have at least 50% approval.

Consequently, all, some, one, or possibly even none of the nominees could earn awards in this category. That means I'm not going to put a lot of effort into handicapping these categories.

A bunch of nominees can take home Emmy statuettes. I'm OK with that.

Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Series (Area)
American Idol: "Disney Night" – Charles Ciup, David Bernstein, Bettina Levesque, Bert Atkinson, Damien Tuffereau, Rob Palmer, Bruce Green, Daryl Studebaker, Mike Carr, Jofre Rosero, Nathanial Havholm, Easter Xua, Andrew Georgopoulos, Ed Horton, Brian Reason, Keith Dicker, Adam Margolis, Ron Lehman, Christopher Gray, Luke Chantrell (ABC)
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: "Robert Glasper Performs "Heaven's Here"" – Mike Williams, Matt Muro, Rich York, Tim Quigley, Phil Salanto, Ricardo Sarmiento, Joel Sadler (Comedy Central)
Dancing with the Stars: "Horror Night" – Charles Ciup, Christine Salomon, Brian Reason, Bettina Levesque, Daryl Studebaker, Bruce Green, Bert Atkinson, Nat Havholm, Ron Lehman, Mike Carr, Adam Margolis, Damien Tuffereau, Easter Xua, Derek Pratt, Mark Koonce, Allen Merriweather, Andrew Georgopoulos, Luke Chantrell, Ed Moore (ABC)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: "Union Busting" – Dave Saretsky, Dante Pagano, John Harrison, Rich Freedman, Ken Thompson, Yayo Vang, Elizabeth Cavanagh, Wyatt Maker, John Schwartz, Augie Yuson (HBO / HBO Max)
The Masked Singer: "Masks Back - The Good, The Bad & The Cuddly - Round 1" – Christine Salomon, Nat Havholm, Mark Koonce, Brett Crutcher, Adam Margolis, Rob Palmer, Ron Lehman, Bert Atkinson, Bettina Levesque, Jeff Wheat, Kary D'Alessandro, Daryl Studebaker, John Goforth, Cary Symmons, Sean Flannery, Darin Gallacher, Chris Hill (FOX)
The Voice: "Live Top 10 Performances" – Allan Wells, Danny Bonilla, Mano Bonilla, Martin J. Brown Jr., Robert Burnette, Suzanne Ebner, Guido Frenzel, Alex Hernandez, Marc Hunter, Scott Hylton, Kathrine Iacofano, Scott Kaye, Steve Martynuk, Jofre Rosero, Steve Simmons, Terrance Ho (NBC)

This was the third (actually first in time order) Emmy that "Last Week Tonight" won last year, so I think it's guaranteed to win it this year. The only question is who else gets to take home a trophy.

I bet the editors and technical direction people working on "The Daily Show" will be very happy that these are now area awards.

I will continue this series after posting an obituary tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Previous posts about the 2022 Emmy Awards

• 'Teenage Dream' and 'The Lost Class' — two PSAs about gun violence nominated for Outstanding Commercial at the 2022 Emmy Awards
• Barack Obama nominated for Outstanding Narrator of 'Our Great National Parks' at the 2022 Emmy Awards
• 'Lucy and Desi' leads Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special nominees with six nominations
• 'The Beatles: Get Back,' 'We Need to Talk About Cosby,' and 'Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy' all nominated for five Emmy Awards in nonfiction series
• John Oliver examines inflation plus 'Last Week Tonight's Emmy nominations
• Colbert examines Manchin agreeing to the reconciliation bill that would fight climate change