Was it the best debate ever?
Donald Trump thinks so. He went on Fox News to declare it the best he’s ever done.
The inhabitants of Late-nightistan almost surely agree. It had to be at least among the best ever for sheer quality and quantity of material for them to whale away at like a piñata, delivering an enduring stream of goodies.
And the sheer volume of ridicule the late-night hosts are heaping on Trump raises an actually serious question: could this fusillade of jokes actually have an impact on outcome of this presidential race?
To be sure, Trump supporters aren’t the ones watching late-night shows. They know that such lack of loyalty would condemn them to burn in the eternal fires of RINO hell; but news outlets of all stripes are running clips of monologues and comedy bits, all built around the premise that Trump is a laughing stock.
Could this finally be the point at which that stock finally turns into real soup?
Jimmy Kimmel, who is in something of a celebrity blood feud with the former president, said last night that he didn’t know how Trump could declare this one his best debate ever but, he added, savoring the widespread mocking of Trump: “It was definitely my best debate.” Kimmel ran a succession of clips with Trump pronouncing that his healthcare plan, which Trump endlessly promised would surely be better than Obamacare, was going to be announced “in the next two weeks.”
The clips began in 2016. The Harris campaign could easily turn this little vignette into a highly effective campaign commercial.
That Kimmel monologue segment ended with Trump being pressed at the debate over whether he really had a plan and uttering one of the memorable lines from the debate, “I have concepts of a plan.”
Kimmel joked that Trump really “puts the con in concepts.”
Stephen Colbert, who also could hardly contain his delight at the outcome of the debate, declared that Kamala Harris “ran Trump over with a truck.” And that it was so bad “RFK Jr. scooped him up and put him in his roadkill freezer.”
Over on The Daily Show, host Jordan Klepper said despite Trump’s bonkers claims that he had won polls on the debate by scores like 83-6, it was obvious that he lost because he had already begun to declare it was all rigged; Harris seemed to know the questions in advance.
Klepper was overcome with incredulity that Trump thought this loony line of attack would work because in presidential debates, “They always ask the same questions.”
Klepper said this was like being at a ballgame and “being surprised someone knew the words to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Seth Meyers raised the bar by delivering an entire hourlong primetime special devoted to the debate in a much-extended version of his now regular feature “A Closer Look.” How much was Trump missing old “Sleepy Joe” at Tuesday’s debate? Meyers offered that “Trump was probably seeing Biden’s face on Harris’ body the way starving people in cartoons see turkey legs.”
Funny as much of the original material was from all the shows, the clear, solid-gold, guaranteed laugh line involved the six-word clip heard round the world: “In Springfield they’re eating the dogs.”
Trump’s impassioned delivery of this totally crackers assertion—he got around to including cats and other pets—only amplified how funny it sounds. And it sounded funny every single time the clip was used on a late-night show. And it was used a lot.
After The Daily Show ran it, they had a bit with correspondent Ronny Chieng going to Springfield dressed as a cat waiting from some Haitian immigrant to make a hungry move.
Kimmel played the clip and zeroed in on Trump’s running mate, J.D Vance who is largely responsible for the rumor about the new form of cat food. He followed that with a clip of CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins interviewing Vance and pushing back on the vice presidential nominee’s defense that constituents had called him with the cat updates. Collins asked if they called and said they’d seen Bigfoot, would he run with that story too?
Kimmel helpfully displayed Vance’s office number on the screen and said he was not suggesting viewers call it and give their accounts of seeing Bigfoot, any more than what he’d suggested they not do the night before. But he proudly announced the Vance office had gotten a lot of calls from people complaining that their kids had become gay from eating rainbow sprinkles at Baskin Robbins.
Even without what surely would have been a killer parody debate sketch on Saturday Night Live (some had hoped Maya Rudolph might make her initial appearance as Harris in presidential candidate role on the Meyers special, but that didn’t happen), the Trump disaster on the debate stage will certainly be included in campaign folklore.
The purpose in bombarding Trump with comedy is not purely to round up some younger voters to join in the general dismissal of the Republican candidate.
Few have more invested in seeing Trump fail in his bid to return to the White House. After all, the late-night hosts are being mentioned by name as potential targets for Trump to try to shut down if he’s re-elected.
They’re clearly not holding back. They are portraying Trump as both addled and dangerous.
The message is clear in comments like one Kimmel made last night, sort of under the laughter from a previous joke. “He’s a monstrous person,” Kimmel said, kind of as an aside.
Nothing anyone has thrown at him so far has brought Trump low, which surely astonishes the hosts, who can hardly believe Trump’s Houdini act, making accountability disappear.
The voters punished John Kerry for windsurfing. They punished Michael Dukakis for wearing a funny tank hat. But they’re not punishing Trump for inanities like spreading cat consumption—yet.
Though they are likely enjoying the laughs.
