Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel returned to late night post-Emmys to discuss the other major event on Monday: the Iowa caucuses, where Donald Trump won with 51% of the vote.
“If you’ve ever wondered ‘what is the polar opposite of MLK Day?’ It is the Iowa Republican caucus,” Kimmel joked about the primary tradition, which saw people voting the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. “The same people who were screaming about the Dominion Voting machines are digging through a brown paper sack from Stop’n’Shop to decide who will be president,” Kimmel remarked.
“And then they dropped all the names into a popcorn bucket and they find the baldest guy they can to count them aloud.
“As was expected, Trump won the caucus tiny-handedly” despite barely visiting Iowa, he noted. “It somehow made voters love him more. It’s the same strategy he used raising Eric and Don Jr.”
The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, came in second with 21%, while Nikki Haley came in third with 19%. Still, Haley, “definitely wins the award for glass half full of it”, said Kimmel.
After her bronze medal finish, Haley said: “I can safely say tonight, Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race.”
“Well if it did, you’re not one of them!” Kimmel exclaimed. “You came in third!”
Trump, meanwhile, still faces several trials without some of his lawyers. His top three lawyers recently quit, including head lawyer Joey Tacopina. “He lost Joey Taco!” Kimmel exclaimed. “How do you lose Joey Taco? Who’s even left, Vinny Pepperoni? ‘Your honor, I’ll now be represented by the law firm of Linguini & Clams, thank you.’”
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert taped the Late Show before the Emmys and thus the Iowa caucus, but he predicted Trump would win by a landslide. “They love him in Iowa, I think because he has the exact same hair as an ear of corn,” he joked.
This year’s caucus occurred during a polar vortex, with a predicted high in Iowa of 0F (-17.7C). “I’m sorry, that’s actually Ron DeSantis’s poll numbers,” Colbert quipped.
“The idea of Republican primaries implies that the GOP will continue to exist, and right now there is reason to doubt that,” he continued, as multiple state-level Republican parties are going bankrupt.
“That’s financially bankrupt. They already achieved morally,” Colbert joked. “They’ve got no money. Right now, the state Republican parties’ finances are somewhere between Rudy Giuliani and abandoned JCPenney.”
In August, for example, the Arizona GOP had just $14,800 left in the bank. “To put that into perspective, the Arizona GOP cannot afford to buy a 2017 Honda Civic. Certainly not with power windows,” he quipped.
And in Florida, the chairman of the Florida Republican party was ousted because he was under criminal investigation for sexual assault. “Yes, no one under investigation for sexual assault should be chairman of the Florida Republican party. They should be the Republican nominee for president,” Colbert deadpanned.
