Late-night hosts dug into Donald Trump’s unpopularity with GOP midterm candidates and his insistence on having US taxpayers foot the bill for recycled campaign ads.
Seth Meyers
On Thursday’s Late Night, Seth Meyers noted dissent within the Republican party over Donald Trump’s hugely unpopular war with Iran. In the run-up to the midterms next month, several GOP candidates, including Ken Paxton in Texas and Ashley Hinson in Iowa, have run ads calling the war a mistake, though not directly calling out Trump himself.
“I’m sorry, you both supported the war, and now you want it to end? Who is that campaign ad for – you?” Meyers asked.
“Also by the way, very cool and not at all cowardly to call for an end to the war while not naming the president who started it,” he continued. “But I get it, you guys are in a tough spot. Trump doesn’t care about anyone but himself. When it comes to Republicans running in competitive races, Trump is thinking ‘maybe I help them,’ or” to quote Trump speaking in the Oval Office this week about Iran, “maybe I blow them up.”
Trump had previously endorsed Paxton, but “his endorsement came with some very strange and unusual caveats,” said Meyers.
As Trump put it in one of many similar asides on Paxton: “He may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen.”
“How would you like to have Trump as your wingman?” Meyers laughed. “‘Excuse me, miss, my friend over there thinks you’re very attractive. He, on the other hand, is not attractive at all.’”
Later in the segment, Meyers noted: “Trump’s own lackeys are slamming him, his poll numbers are bad, his TV ratings are worse, which is why he’s found a new and totally legal way to get his message out: just air campaign ads on national television using your taxpayer money.”
New ads in support of the midterms aired this week that look suspiciously like Trump’s ads from 2024 yet paid for by the US government, raising concerns from Congress.
“They literally took a campaign ad they used in 2024 and re-aired it on TV using taxpayer dollars,” Meyers fumed. “He’s $2bn richer than he was two years ago, just pay for it yourself, you cheapskate! Is there anything this grub won’t make us pay for? If you went out to dinner with Trump, he’d order everything on the menu then say I forgot my wallet, then ask you for 50 bucks, then put it into his wallet in front of you.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host reacted to a new report finding that consumer confidence is now lower than it was during the pandemic. “Remember the good old days, when we thought our parents were going to die of a highly contagious disease?” he joked. “But don’t worry, the president says our nation is doing really well.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed the US was doing “better than ever before, but the Public just doesn’t know how well we’re doing. The Fake News Media refuses to disseminate our Record Setting Numbers, so I’m doing the best I can to do it myself!”
“No way he came up with ‘disseminate’ on his own,” Kimmel quipped. “He thinks disseminate is how he got stuck with Don Jr.”
“The president right now is working very hard to right the ship that definitely isn’t sinking,” Kimmel continued. “Trump held an event yesterday to triumphantly announce a $54bn investment in natural gas,” though he appeared to doze off during it.
“Only Donald Trump would fall asleep during a press conference with the secretary of energy,” Kimmel quipped.
