Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about the announcement that Fox News averted a lengthy trial and instead chose to settle with Dominion over claims of defamation. “Dammit, I want my trial, I want it!” he said. “You were supposed to be provide me with six weeks of delicious content. I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames.”
Fox News settled for $787.5m, to which Colbert quipped: “That’s a lot of dough-minion.”
But he complained that the decision “does nothing for our democracy” as Fox News does not have to include any on-air apology as part of the settlement. Colbert wanted the hosts to “admit that they lied over and over again about the 2020 election and then hurl themselves into Mount Doom”.
To counter any negative news, the company released an ad in the New York Times claiming that 41% of viewers still trusted the network. “So less then half, kind of a weird thing to brag about,” he said.
He moved on to the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, whose poll numbers are sinking and whose donors are panicking. He is still feuding with Disney after the company stood up against his “don’t say gay” bill.
His latest attack involved replacing members of an oversight board but the old board stripped the new board of most powers before his hand-picked members could take their seats.
“You’re in Florida, don’t you know you don’t mess with Disney,” Colbert said. “You’re not Nemo, they’ll never find you.”
One of his proposed next steps is building a state prison next to the park. Colbert joked that for someone hinting at a presidential campaign, putting “Florida convicts next to your children” is not a wise move.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host started with a reminder of what day it is for Americans. “It’s tax day or as Donald Trump and Amazon would call it, April Fool’s Day and we’re the fools,” he joked.
Kimmel also spoke about the huge Fox News settlement and quipped that it was “gonna take a lot of reverse mortgage ads to pay that off”.
In a statement following the news, Fox announced that it was proof of its “continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards”. Kimmel joked that “they’re already lying in their statement about lying”.
He also expressed disappointment that there will be no on-air admission of wrongdoing, saying that instead they will go “right back to sodomising the country”.
He added that it was “a bigly disappointment for Donald Trump” who had posted on Truth Social that Fox should avoid settling. This week saw his first Instagram post in over a year, which was an ad for a second round of Tump NFTs which see him in variously silly scenarios, including as a king on a playing card.
“If you buy three kings and line them up you spell out the name of his favourite organisation,” Kimmel said.
He added that it was “an embarrassing thing to do” and that there’s “only one authentic Trump collectible and it’s not a trading card, it’s HPV”.
