Late-night hosts talked about special counsel Robert Hur’s appearance before Congress and the House bill to ban TikTok unless owner ByteDance sells in the US.
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel opened with major news out of Congress: the House passed a bill to ban TikTok in the US unless owner ByteDance agrees to sell it. Most lawmakers from both parties voted for it; only 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against it. “Who would’ve guessed that this would be the thing that brings both sides together?” Kimmel mused.
“I mean, Republicans voted against their own border bill because they were afraid it would make Biden look good, they can’t even get it together to stand up to Vladimir Putin, but my God they will stand up to Charli D’Amelio and then some,” he added.
Kimmel cited a new poll that found that about half the people who use TikTok believe it poses a threat to national security, but they still use it. “I guess at this point, what the hell, right?” said Kimmel. “Half our country supports a national security threat for president, might as well dance.”
“I don’t think we really understand how crazy these kids are going to go if they kill TikTok,” Kimmel noted. “I mean, for teenagers, losing TikTok is a bigger deal than losing your virginity. I’m not kidding. This is like taking away all their imaginary friends at once.”
The House bill now heads to the Senate, “which means that the fate of every tweenage TikTokker is in the hands of a bunch of old people with hotmail accounts”, he joked. “This is a big deal. This is like iPhone Footloose, and there’s no Kevin Bacon to save us.
“And there are plenty of adults who are going to hate this,” he added. “Without TikTok, what are people supposed to do at work? If they ban TikTok, how will we know if someone is skateboarding down the street drinking cranberry juice and listening to Fleetwood Mac?”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers recapped special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before Congress, where he noted “several material distinctions” between Biden and Trump’s handling of classified documents. Hur also confirmed that Trump refused to cooperate, obstructed justice, destroyed evidence and lied about documents in his possession.
“The differences between the two cases are obvious,” said Meyers. “Biden gave his documents back immediately and cooperated in every possible way, while Trump lied, obstructed investigators, moved documents, insisted they were his and kept them hidden in that weird Mar-a-Lago bathroom that has one fancy thing for every cheap thing.
“There’s no comparison to the Trump case,” he continued. “In fact, a previously unnamed witness in the Trump indictment just came forward and revealed to the world that he saw some very shady behavior involving boxes of classified documents being moved on to a plane.”
That would be “Trump employee 5”, a former Mar-a-Lago valet who told CNN that he saw boxes of classified documents loaded on to a plane at Mar-a-Lago and never returned. “Where are they now?” Meyers wondered. “Trump Tower? Russia? Are they just doing laps on a luggage belt at Newark airport?”
Stephen Colbert
And on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert lamented how “the inevitable has inevited”, as Trump has officially locked up the Republican nomination for president. “‘Nomination’ was not what I wanted to hear after the words ‘Trump’ and ‘locked up’,” he quipped.
Biden also locked up the Democratic nomination, “so they’re stepping back into the ring for a heavyweight rematch. It’s like if Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier, now.
“Now that the matchup is set, we can focus on the central policy issue of 2024: which guy’s brains don’t work good,” Colbert continued. On Tuesday, the House GOP grilled special counsel Hur to try to get him to testify that Biden is in cognitive decline.
The move backfired, as Hur confirmed Biden has a “photographic memory” and Democrats showed montages of Trump’s many flubs on the campaign trail.
“Trump did not like the video showing that he’s losing the cognitive, so he went on Truth Social last night and played the ‘get out of reality’ card,” said Colbert.
Trump wrote: “Artificial intelligence was used by them against me in their videos of me. Can’t do that Joe!”
“These are definitely real,” Colbert contended, “and I know that because we here at The Late Show, every night, cut together these same kind of montages.”
