"There was no grand strategy in figuring out the right date or anything like that," Desus & Mero showrunner Erik Rydholm told BuzzFeed News. They just wanted to put Desus Nice and the Kid Mero on the air as quickly as possible. And because Viceland doesn't have the baggage a network like NBC or Comedy Central does — having never done a daily talk show before — Desus and Mero have had the freedom to say whatever they wanted to say about the presidential candidates.

"If we were on another channel, it'd be like, 'Yo, we can't piss off Trump supporters, you can't piss off Hillary supporters.' Here, it's like, 'Whatever. If you in your feelings, you in your feelings,'" Desus said in mid-October, lounging next to Mero on a patio chair in Vice’s sprawling outdoor space on a post-show break.

The result is this sampling from the day after Trump won the election: "Shout out to all the white people that voted for him. Yes, I said y'all. I'm calling y'all out," Desus said. "Special shout out to white women coming out in droves to not vote for Hillary, but for Mr. Brexit, Mr. Grab 'Em in their Chocha. ... Every time I go past a Lululemon I'm just gonna shake my head."

“It's not only that they don't know what they're doing, they refuse to do things the way things have been done in the past,” Desus said of Viceland. On other networks, “it'd usually be like get a white guy, give him a suit, get an auditorium, get a band, get three guests, boom. Monologue, interviews, we out,” he added. At Viceland, Mero said, it all starts with them asking, “What do you want to do?”



The answer? Create the most humbled production on late night with the most outspoken hosts.