Maybe the hosts—and writers—of late-night television were channeling Tom Petty on Monday night when they responded to the double challenge of acknowledging the horrific news of this weekend’s attempted political assassination, while staying true to their commitment to delivering pointed political humor in an hyper-intense election year.
Because their message was: “I won’t back down.”
They might not have been getting pushed to stand up “at the Gates of Hell;” more like standing up in a TV studio and risking catching hell. But the same shows that have made it a political crusade of sorts to mock and malign the redux candidacy of Donald J. Trump did not wilt under pressure from Republicans like Rep. Steve Scalise to back off on targeting Trump—with jokes.
Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, two hosts who have been unabashed in their denunciations of the former president and his views, opened Monday’s shows with long, serious messages delivered directly to the audience, decrying the frightening attack that slightly injured Trump but killed one man and critically injured two more.
Colbert kicked off what he planned to be a live show following the first night of the Republican National Convention by saying that he had reacted to Saturday’s violence in Pennsylvania with horror but also “relief that Donald Trump had lived; and frankly grief for my beautiful country.”
Meyers opened with an even longer message about the importance of preserving democracy in the face of violence, while also pointedly announcing how thankful he was that Trump’s life had been spared.
But neither Colbert nor Meyers was giving any ground in terms of agreeing to “forgo politics,” as Meyers put it, obviously referring to messages like Scalise’s.
Scalise had said: “When you turn on a late-night show, it’s no longer comedy. It’s a constant 10-minute barrage against a single person,” he said. “Comparisons with Hitler. That kind of stuff. That needs to stop.”
(Perhaps the most prominent quote comparing Trump to Hitler was made by J.D. Vance, now Trump’s running make, who, several years earlier had labeled Trump “America’s Hitler.”)
Both Meyers and Colbert sought to counter Republican charges that comments by Democrats had somehow inflamed the tone of political discourse and the result was this episode of violence. Both hosts ticked off the same list of incidents of political violence in recent years which have been dominated by right-wing attacks. They both cited the planned attack on Nancy Pelosi that left her husband seriously injured; the attempt to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer; and especially the mob attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters attempting a coup on January 6, 2021.
They also, somewhat ironically (if that term exists for politicians grabbing for attention at times like these) included the shooting that injured Scalise himself, the one incident traced to a violent leftist.
The defiant response to Scalise undermined any speculation that late-night hosts might cave to pressure tactics in the wake of Saturday’s shooting. The speculation had been partially fueled by the decision of The Daily Show to cancel its planned show Monday night, along with pulling back from traveling to Milwaukee to cover the convention all week.
That fear was largely put to rest late Monday when The Daily Show announced it would present original shows the rest of this week, including one that will be fronted by its celebrated star Jon Stewart on Tuesday night.
Along with deflecting the pressure, Colbert and Meyers essentially told anyone looking to try to shut down their plans to go ahead producing shows pushing the same message as before the incident to buzz off.
Colbert mocked the utterly out-of-character effort by some Republicans to “lower the volume on the rhetoric” by switching from an angry Republican ready to spew the conventionally aggressive right-wing talking points, to the sweet soft-spoken guy surrounded by puppies and kittens sending a similar ugly message just packaged more sweetly:
“Hi. We need to come together and recognize that illegal immigrants are being released from insane asylums to turn your kids into trans librarians.”
Meyers used clips of Marjorie Taylor Greene and J.D. Vance ascribing blame for the shooting to Democrats and said, “You should be ashamed. Please stop.”
“Accurately describing the dangers of autocracy and warning against attempts to dismantle our democracy have nothing to do with political violence,” Meyers added.
Then he and Colbert went right back to telling jokes about Trump. Colbert hardly held back in commenting on Vance, the newly named vice presidential candidate, displaying a picture of him and saying he looked like “the Pillsbury Douche Boy.”
Vance got similar treatment from Anthony Anderson, guest-hosting for Jimmy Kimmel, who used the same picture and said Vance looked like “Eric and Don Jr. had a baby.”
Vance even got a knock from Jimmy Fallon, who said he hadn’t known that Cabbage Patch was making dolls with beards. Fallon, who has distanced himself from the other late-night hosts in largely steering clear of edgy politics, lived up to that reputation for light-heartedness on Monday. He did not say a word about the Trump shooting.
In full joke mode, Colbert launched into an all-out skewering of pro-Trump judge Aileen Cannon who, in Monday’s other huge news, dismissed the classified documents case against the former president. “That is fragrant bull crap,” Colbert said. “Aileen Cannon is one of the most woefully unquailed, biased,” before he reverted to kumbaya mode with a live puppy and toned down the rhetoric using the same words—just in a sweeter tone.
But he wasn’t joking when he said, “There’s a reason why Cannon didn’t want to rule on the facts of the case: because Trump is guilty.”
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