Seth Meyers
Late-night hosts talked about Donald Trump’s election prospects as he remains the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination despite numerous ongoing legal cases. Joe Biden, meanwhile, is dealing with significant pushback from his base; according to new polls, 21% of Democrats disapprove of him. “And that’s the difference – Trump doesn’t have the same problem with his base,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
Trump “could renounce literally every position he’s ever held, call himself a woke antifa communist who believes the military should be abolished and everyone should live together on one giant hippie commune where they smoke weed and wear Hawaiian shirts, and his supporters would be like, ‘hell yeah, let’s call it Maga-ritaville, baby!’” he joked.
His supporters “aren’t going to Trump rallies to hear him talk policy”, Meyers noted. “They’re going to hear him talk windmills and celebrities and do B-minus jokes while he sweats through his suit. It’s the wet-collar comedy tour. They go for the same reason you go see Billy Joel – I don’t want to hear anything new, I just want to listen to a grumpy old man for three hours.”
“Biden obviously does not have the same base level of goodwill with his own party, and now he’s desperately trying to calm down nervous Democrats,” Meyers continued. Meanwhile, Trump will probably be on federal trial for election subversion during the general election, which is, as New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman put it, “an astonishing thing to get your head around”.
“None of us have really processed that yet,” said Meyers. “One of the two major party candidates for president will be sitting in a courtroom every day for virtually the entire general election.
“I’m betting that’s not exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they set up our political system,” he concluded. “It was so beyond their imagination they didn’t even think to put a clause in the constitution that says ‘you can’t run for president if you have boxes of classified documents sitting in your cheesy fake marble bathroom, you dingus.’”
Based on Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, the former president “doesn’t handle” being on trial well. “He sits there scowling all day like a jungle cat in a local zoo,” Meyers joked.
Stephen Colbert
Joe Biden broke his own record for oldest sitting president on Monday, as he turned 81 years old. “Also oldest leaning president and oldest ‘just lying down to rest my eyes’ president,” joked Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.
Biden celebrated his birthday with some of the lowest poll numbers of his presidency – his approval rate is currently around 40%. “Still, pretty good for an 80-year-old guy running around with poll numbers less than half his age,” Colbert quipped.
Biden still has his supporters, “and here’s what they love about him: he’s not somebody much worse”, Colbert joked, as new polls found that many Biden voters are more motivated to stop Trump than support Biden. “Well yeah, nobody buys a fire extinguisher because they’re big fans of pressurized foam,” Colbert said.
In Trump news, a Colorado judge ruled that Trump engaged in an insurrection on 6 January, but she will allow him to remain on the state’s primary ballot because the 14th amendment explicitly bans insurrectionists from serving as US senators, representatives and even presidential electors, but it does not say anything about presidents. “So he’s off on a technicality,” Colbert bemoaned.
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged Joe Biden’s 81st birthday by quizzing his audience on what household products the president, born in 1942, predates. “Every time Joe Biden has a birthday, it feels like a political misstep. It’s like why would you do that! You’re old enough!” he joked.
Given that age is a significant concern among voters, Biden’s advisers were reportedly torn on whether he should ignore the birthday or make jokes about it, “and to be honest I’m still not sure which option they chose”, Kimmel said. At the White House’s annual turkey pardon on Monday, Biden joked he was too young to make it to the first event 76 years ago.
“Yeah … that isn’t helping at all,” said Kimmel.
At a Trump rally in Iowa over the weekend, representative Mike Sexton opened by citing one of his “great heroes”, the Star Wars character Yoda, then used a Yoda voice to claim the “dark side” was present in Biden.
“Ah, the stupid is strong with this one, isn’t it?” said Kimmel. “I bet that kills at the 4H club, though. Doesn’t Yoda live in that swamp they all promised to drain?”
