Comedian Andy Zaltzman does not understate the implications of Donald Trump’s US election victory. “Spend as much time as you can with the people you care about,” he says. “Tell them you love them, just in case.”

It’s almost a decade since Zaltzman launched his satirical podcast The Bugle alongside co-host John Oliver, then a correspondent on The Daily Show and now the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. Over the years it’s covered tumultuous global events with a blend of wit, irreverence and surreal, Pythonesque humour, taking on topics as diverse as the worldwide financial crash, the Arab spring and the Fifa corruption scandal. In the process it’s attracted more than half a million regular listeners.

Now the show has returned from a hiatus sparked by Oliver’s departure this summer, just in time to catch the fallout from the most outlandish and acrimonious presidential campaign in living memory. And while it might be tempting to think of a Trump presidency as the ultimate gift to political satire, Zaltzman is perturbed by the result.

“He’s such an unprecedented person to have in a position of such power,” he says. “There’s no way to know what he’s going to do. But who knows? Maybe beneath the external lunatic there’s a more moderate, even-minded lunatic that we just haven’t seen yet.

“The odds at one point were two to one for him to win it, which when you think about it was about 2,500 times more likely than Leicester City winning the English Premier League, so I wasn’t massively surprised. But still, if making Trump president was the answer, I don’t think I’ll ever understand exactly what the question was.

“It’s difficult to understand his appeal, beyond the fact that he’s a non-politician. That seems to have been his main selling point to people who were understandably sickened by the mainstream political system. In that sense I suppose he might be the new Che Guevara. In 50 years’ time, students will be hanging Donald Trump posters on their walls.”

It’s almost a decade since Zaltzman (right) launched his satirical podcast The Bugle alongside co-host John Oliver, now the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. Photograph: MediaPunch/Rex/Shutterstock

As to whether the president-elect will manage to implement his more extreme campaign pledges – a multibillion-dollar wall along the Mexican border and a freeze on Muslim immigration – Zaltzman is uncertain.

“I have no idea whether he’ll do it, and neither, I’d imagine, does Mr Trump. He riffed his election campaign, now he’ll have to riff his presidency. And improv politics is a risky road, as David Cameron discovered.

“Fundamentally, I think Trump’s a pragmatist. He decided the pragmatic way to power was by debasing humanity. Politically, doing crazy things is less pragmatic than saying crazy things. I hope.”

If Zaltzman is troubled by Trump’s win, he’s also concerned by the fractious state of the US political discourse, as illustrated by the vitriol directed towards Hillary Clinton.

“She seemed to be unpopular in a way that we don’t really understand in Britain,” he says. “It could have been momentous, the first female president of the US. I think men have probably had a fair crack at running the planet. It feels like it’s time for women to have a go. Maybe give them the next five or 10,000 years and see how they get on.

“But Clinton has been in the public eye for decades, and I guess people took against her because of that. There are some glitches on her CV, but I really don’t understand the depth of the dislike for her, and maybe we’re heading that way over here as well. We could have similar levels of hatred towards our political figures.”

The rising discord in the UK is a worry for Zaltzman, one amplified by the political climate after June’s Brexit vote. “If you look at the attacks on the judges over article 50, the people who are doing their job and allowing democracy to function are being decried as the enemies of democracy,” he says.

“I could understand the result of the referendum. I voted to remain and I feel European as much as I feel British, but I could see that there were good arguments on both sides, it’s just that the bad arguments seemed to completely drown them out. The whole tone of the leave campaign was negative and xenophobic, and a lot of the remain campaign was just selfish. It seemed to focus on people’s personal finances rather than any idea of what we should be aspiring to as a nation and a continent.

Donald Trump enters the White House flanked by his wife Melania and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA

“I think the EU has to take a share of the blame, too. There’s clearly a lot that it’s ballsed up over the years, but it’s an amazing achievement that it’s managed to bring so many benefits to the people of the continent while simultaneously making itself massively unpopular.”

While the result of the referendum may have stung, Zaltzman discusses it with a wry detachment. That changes when he turns to the events that followed, and he grows more animated as he discusses the scramble for power that ended with Theresa May as prime minister.

“You have Boris Johnson as foreign secretary, which frankly seems like a simultaneous prank on Boris Johnson himself and on the rest of the world,” he says. “But the strangest thing is that in this country, where we supposedly love democracy to an almost erotic degree, and fight wars for democracy, and kill people just to give them the right to vote, we have an unelected prime minister putting through policies that we didn’t have a chance to vote on, and no one seems to want a general election. It’s like we just cannot face another three weeks of concentrated political campaigning.

“And our media isn’t covering itself in glory at the moment. It’s hard to see what the purpose of having a lot of these newspapers is really. They appear to be almost Soviet-level propaganda rags, encouraging people to think that the government exists solely to work for them and not in the interest of the entire population. The middle ground doesn’t seem to shift units, you have to foster anger and disagreement to make things function.”

It is in this febrile atmosphere that The Bugle makes its return, with Oliver replaced by a revolving lineup of co-hosts including American stand-up Wyatt Cenac, Radio 4 comedy presenter Nish Kumar and Zaltzman’s sister, Helen, who fronts the lexicological podcast The Allusionist.

“John and I didn’t have a big showbiz bust-up with guitars and TVs being thrown out of hotel windows,” Zaltzman says. “It just became increasingly clear that it wasn’t logistically possible any more.

“He’s been very successful in the States. They have a tradition of TV satire that combines real journalistic rigour with comedy, and if you’re asking people to watch a half-hour programme about business tax rates, it’s much easier if it’s a funny half-hour. We’ve had some similar attempts in the UK; Rory Bremner and Mark Thomas have done some strong stuff, but they haven’t become a fixture of the media discussion in the way that things like The Daily Show have.

“But for The Bugle, I’ve lined up people I like and whose stuff I enjoy. It’s been fun to do, and I’m looking forward to hearing some different views from different bits of the planet.”

The show returns as part of the Radiotopia network, a collection of podcasts that includes cult-hit design programme 99% Invisible, true crime series Criminal and Song Exploder, in which musicians discuss their work and dissect tracks with a forensic level of detail. Zaltzman says the network exemplifies the growth of podcasting as a medium.

“When we first began it was a far less competitive arena, you had people essentially making shows for the love of it,” he said. “Now it’s increasingly professional, but it still has a level of creativity and flexibility that traditional radio hasn’t had. You get a real sense of enthusiasm from the people who are producing the shows, and it gives the opportunity for niches to evolve, whereas broadcast media has to go for the widest possible audience.

“I feel lucky to be part of that in a loose way. I mean, we basically just get in the studio and bullshit every week.”