Stephen Colbert
For his first monologue of 2024, Stephen Colbert looked ahead to more of the same this year: “Because of our inaction we’re having the same presidential election with the same two old men as last time, only older and samer.”
Among the same things in 2024: the Republican primary starting with the Iowa caucus last week, where the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is positioned to be “the frontrunner for first loser”.
Haley found herself in hot water over the weekend after she flubbed a response to a question about the civil war – “I think the cause of the civil war was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” she said.
“I’m sorry, the answer we were looking for is slavery,” the Late Show host corrected. “For the former governor of South Carolina, that is a ridiculous thing to forget.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump continued his pandering to the evangelical voters of Iowa. “Trump knows how to play to this flock, because on Friday he went unto Truth Social and lo he has reposted this abomination,” said Colbert, with a video claiming “God gave us Trump” as a “caretaker” for the nation.
“OK, fine, God made Trump,” said Colbert. “But God also made that fish in the Amazon that swims up your peehole and shoots out spikes so you can’t get it out, so I’m just saying God has a mixed record on making things. By the way, Donald, have you thought about going swimming in the Amazon?”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers mocked Trump for a bizarre story on the campaign trail, in which the Republican 2024 frontrunner said people regularly stopped to ask him: “Sir, how do you do it? How do you wake up every morning and put on your pants?”
“So, let me see if I have this right,” said Meyers. “People come up to you, Donald Trump, the former president and current four-time criminal defendant, and their number one burning question for you is how do you put on your pants?
“I’ve sadly been listening to this guy for the better part of a decade, and I have to say, he’s somehow becoming even less coherent and that’s quite a feat,” he added.
Meyers also noted a list of upcoming court dates for the former president so long that cable news hosts declined to specify all of them. “It’s not good when a list of your ongoing court cases ends with and so on, and so on,” said Meyers. “Cable news is literally 24/7, and even they don’t have time to list every trial date that Trump is facing.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated his first monologue of 2024 to mocking Aaron Rodgers. The Jets quarterback recently drew Kimmel’s ire for claiming on an ESPN show, without evidence, that Kimmel would be named in recently released documents about associates of Jeffrey Epstein.
“And then it did come out and, of course, my name isn’t on it,” said Kimmel. “I don’t know Jeffrey Epstein, I’ve never met Jeffrey Epstein, I’m not on a list, I wasn’t on a plane or an island or anything ever.”
Kimmel noted that the quarterback’s comments played into larger conspiratorial thinking: “A lot of delusional people honestly believe I am meeting up with Tom Hanks and Oprah at Shakey’s once a week to eat pizza and drink the blood of children,” he said.
“Either he actually believes my name was going to be on Epstein’s list, which is insane,” he continued, “or the more likely scenario is he doesn’t actually believe that, he just said it because he’s mad at me for making fun of his top knot and his lies about being vaccinated.
“He’s particularly upset, I think, because I made fun of the fact that he floated this wacko idea that the UFO sightings that were in the news in February were being reported to distract us from the Epstein list,” Kimmel theorized, playing back a clip from 2023 in which Kimmel joked that Rodgers should “revisit the concussion protocol” for the NFL.
“So he saw that and maybe to retaliate he decided to insinuate that I am a pedophile,” he mused. “This is how these nuts do it now. You don’t like Trump? You’re a pedophile. It’s their go-to move, and it shows you how much they actually care about pedophilia.
“I think Aaron Rodgers has the right to express any opinion he wants to, but saying that someone is a pedophile is not an opinion, nor is it trash talk,” he added. Kimmel said if Rodgers apologized, he would accept it and move on.
“When I do get something wrong, which happens on rare occasions. you know what I do? I apologize for it, which is what Aaron Rodgers should do, which is what a decent person would do, but I bet he won’t,” he concluded.
