Seth Meyers
Late-night hosts reluctantly recapped the fourth Republican debate on Thursday evening, which was hosted on the little-known cable channel News Nation. The debate featured four remaining candidates – Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis – but notably not the faraway frontrunner in the race, Donald Trump, who was barely mentioned.
“Why should I act like any of these people are actually running against Donald Trump when they won’t even act like they’re running against Donald Trump?” wondered Seth Meyers on Late Night. “They spent the whole debate fighting each other like pigeons fighting over a french fry in the parking lot of a restaurant that is owned by a much bigger pigeon.”
Trump, meanwhile, was back in a New York courtroom on Thursday for his civil fraud trial, where he was “once again sitting at the defense table scowling in front of a computer screen like a teen at the DMV forced to watch a video about the dangers of drunk driving”, Meyers said.
The appearance came a day after Trump caused shockwaves with a town hall hosted by Fox News’s Sean Hannity. Asked by Hannity to promise he would not abuse power to harass his enemies, Trump could only muster that he wouldn’t be a dictator except for the first day.
“I will say, I love how much Trump enjoys making Hannity miserable,” Meyers laughed. “Hannity is clearly trying to help Trump out and Trump laughed in his face like he was Joe Pesci about to whack ’im.
“Whenever Hannity interviews Trump, there’s this weird dynamic where Hannity, the interviewer, is desperately trying not to make news, and Trump the candidate is like ‘Sean, this is boring shit, I’m gonna make some news,’” he added.
The incident angered some Trump allies, “not that Trump said he’d be a dictator but that Hannity asked him the question in the first place”, said Meyers. This included Steve Bannon, who tore into Hannity on his radio show, calling it a “stupid, ridiculous question” and Hannity an “idiot”.
“I love watching all these horrible people fight with each other,” said Meyers. “Chris Christie calling Vivek obnoxious, Trump calling DeSantis a meatball, Bannon calling Hannity an idiot and no one calling Trump anything lest he eat them like a french fry. It’s such a striking contrast with the other side.”
Jimmy Kimmel
The most recent Republican presidential debate was “the lowest-rated debate so far”. said Jimmy Kimmel. “Trump was again the elephant not in the room, which I guess left us with Nikki Haley as the star of the thing.
“But the winner of the dangerously detached from reality award went to Vivek Ramaswamy,” he continued, “who rattled off a litany of ludicrous conspiracy theories in his ongoing effort to win over the worst timeshare salesman with an Adderall addiction vote.”
Ramaswamy, a pharmaceutical businessman, “got so out of hand lambasting Nikki Haley, Chris Christie had to step in to shut him up”. At one point, Christie cut him off: “This is a smart, accomplished woman, you should stop insulting her.” To which Ramaswamy told Christie to leave the stage and eat a meal.
“A sleeping bag of bedbugs is what he is,” said Kimmel of Ramaswamy. “A couple months ago I had never heard of Vivek Ramaswamy, and I’m hoping we can go back to that.”
The Daily Show
Vivek Ramaswamy is the guy who puts the "dick" in valedictorian pic.twitter.com/mYSxhAShlv
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 8, 2023
The Daily Show also took aim at Ramaswamy, the “millionaire businessman and the guy who puts the dick in valedictorian”, according to guest host Charlamagne Tha God.
Over three debates, Ramaswamy has built a reputation “for being a world-class asshole”, he continued, “and this debate was no different”.
During the debate, Ramaswamy repeatedly cut off opponents and spouted a host of conspiracy theories. “That dude is up here spewing every conspiracy theory in the book – 9/11, stolen elections, replacement theory,” said Charlamagne. “He is right about January 6 being an inside job, though. I mean, the whole thing was orchestrated by the president. You can’t get more inside than that!”
Ramaswamy went particularly hard on Haley, the only woman on stage, whom he blasted for not knowing much about Ukraine. “Going after Haley for supposedly not knowing three provinces in Ukraine just makes Haley seem relatable,” said Charlamagne. “None of us know shit about Ukraine! We just put that flag in our bio and call it a day.”
