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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Guardian staff

Stephen Colbert on Kamala Harris: ‘A prosecutor in the trial of Donald J Trump’

Stephen Colbert on stage
‘Congratulations Democrats, you can stop texting now’ … Stephen Colbert. Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts discussed the end of the Democratic national convention and Donald Trump’s reaction.

Stephen Colbert

The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert referenced the “energy and joy and purpose” of the week, adding: “I feel like I just fell out of a coconut tree.”

The success of this week’s convention has edged contributions to the party to $500m. “Congratulations, Democrats, you can stop texting now,” he joked.

While this week saw Barack and Michelle Obama on stage, Colbert reminded viewers that the Republican national convention offered up Lara Trump and Marco Rubio instead. He said it would be like being at a restaurant with the server saying: “Sorry we don’t have Coke, is diarrhea OK?”

The final moment of the final night had North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, teasing the final big name on stage. “Beyoncé? I’m just asking,” Colbert said. “I know the DNC said she wasn’t coming but TMZ said she was.”

While the singer was a no-show, Cooper’s introduction was of course for Kamala Harris, who formally accepted the nomination to be the Democratic presidential candidate as she reached her 10th anniversary with her husband, Doug Emhoff.

“I’m sorry she didn’t have a gift for you tonight, Doug, but if you wait a couple of months, she might get you a new house,” Colbert said.

Throughout the week, Trump shared his thoughts on Truth Social, criticising Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz, as just an assistant coach, rather than a coach. Colbert said that it’s almost like he’s “only qualified to be some sort of vice-president”.

Harris took aim at Trump in her speech, saying that he was an “unserious man” among other things. She also warned the crowd that he was not done.

Colbert disagreed: “After you roasted him this hard, I think he’s well-done.”

He said that Harris was “a prosecutor in the trial of Donald J Trump” and that she would “sentence him to four to eight years of President Harris”.

Jon Stewart

On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart also spoke about Harris’s speech, showing footage of her talking of her youth moving from state to state. “Just name swing states, say that you moved to swing states,” he pleaded.

“We finally get to meet communist Kamala, the radical we have heard so much about,” he said before showing footage of her expressing reasonable views about kindness.

Meanwhile, Trump has been “tweeting nonsensical shit” with Stewart saying that he has “morphed into a poor man’s cat-turd”.

Stewart spoke about the diversity of the speakers this week yet reminded viewers that there was no Palestinian-American on the stage. “To be fair, it was only four nights, eight hours a night,” he said.

While it might have seemed that “Democrats were hitting all the right notes”, there was less of an enthused reaction on Fox News, “a more objective observer”, he joked.

The “clear-eyed perspective” showed pundits criticising everything in a different way depending on the day, which at one point had them attacking Democrats for relying too heavily on vibes.

“You can’t feed your family on vibes, you can only feed them on immigration fearmongering,” he said.

Seth Meyers

Finally on Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about Walz’s speech earlier in the week in which he said that people should “never underestimate a public school teacher”.

Meyers agreed, as his mother is one of them and “she can drink way more than you think”.

He also mentioned that this week saw the 10th anniversary of Harris and Emhoff’s marriage. “Good luck thinking of a gift for the 11th Doug,” he joked.

One of the many speakers this week was Nancy Pelosi, and Meyers said her speech was met “with cheers and one loud boo”, pulling up a picture of Joe Biden.

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