Missed Monday’s late-night monologues? We’ve got you covered with our round-up of the night’s best laughs from across the dial.
Force-Fed Fascism
When you elect a bullying mob boss, the best you can expect is a swirlie. That’s the harsh reality even Donald Trump‘s own party is discovering now that they’ve installed a childish would-be dictator with a penchant for petty vengeance as their Glorious Leader. Trump’s laughably unqualified and extreme cabinet picks are Trump’s first wedgie to whichever Republicans even dream of defying his iron whims going forward, with an anti-vaxxer nominated for director of health, a TV host as defense secretary, and a sleazy sex criminal pedophile (allegedly) as attorney general, among others.
Republicans are finding out even quicker than the first time that life as lickspittles to a preening dictator means abandoning all sense of pride or human dignity. Just ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A longtime critic of food additives and processed foods (and vaccines, water fluoridation, and common sense, but bear with me), Kennedy made the unforgivable mistake of mildly criticizing his sloppy, junk food-scarfing boss’s diet on a recent podcast. And since no one can suggest that the emperor has no clothes—or, you know, specially tailored cheap suits for big-and-tall despots—Kennedy was soon crammed onto Trump’s private plane and further crammed full of greasy McDonald’s food while a gaggle of grinning Trump goons watched him stare down the waiting camera in shame.
Get used to it, GOP. The lesson all bootlickers learn under the heel of an authoritarian is that no humiliation is enough to sate your chosen tyrant’s bottomless hunger for your complete submission. Eat up.
“I love that they essentially hazed RFK Jr., who rails against processed food and has called fast food poison by not only making him eat McDonald’s but forcing him to take a picture while doing it. I mean look at that face. You know that’s McDonald’s because that right there is a f**king grimace.”
seth meyers
[Joe Pesci in Goodfellas voice] “Hey, uh, Rabbit. You think that’s poison, do you? Eat it. Eat the whole thing. Yeah, in front of us. Eat the whole thing, right now. And by the way, when you’re done eatin’ the whole thing, Grimace is gonna come in here and f**k you in the a**… And while you’re doin’ it, you gotta make eye contact with him the whole time. Yeah, we’re gonna film it.”
jon stewart
“You can tell it’s McDonald’s because that is a grimace.”
stephen colbert
“He’s holding that McDonald’s like you hold a bag of weed you found in your kid’s room.”
seth meyers
[On the photo of Trump, Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., and Mike Johnson gleefully watching Kennedy eat his with junk food] “It’s just like The Last Supper, but everyone is Judas.”
jimmy kimmel
[On a guy who caused a deadly measles outbreak on American Samoa through his anti-vax idiocy being nominated for Health and Human Services head] “Geez, who’s your next choice, the Wuhan bat?”
seth meyers
“This weekend, Trump loaded all his buddies on his private plane, looking like a Jeffrey Epstein tribute band.”
stephen colbert
“These are subservience tests he gives. Mike Johnson has to go to a fight, RFK Jr. has to eat McDonald’s, Matt Gaetz has to date a woman he didn’t pay.”
jimmy kimmel
“And I’m sorry to say, but the hazing didn’t stop there. After this, Trump made everyone do shots, but RFK Jr.’s was the measles vaccine.”
seth meyers
[Singing] “Ba-da-ba-badaa… [flips pixelated bird] You asked for this.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s customary, enormous McDonald’s order] “That’s what they call a ‘farm-to-toilet’ meal.”
jimmy kimmel
Fighting Fire With Sternly Worded Letters
Thankfully, Congressional Democrats have backed up their campaign trail warnings about the genuine and pressing threat Trump poses to the very fabric of American democracy by inspiringly defying Trump’s plans to circumvent the traditional FBI vetting of his candidates and his demands that the GOP rubber stamp his idiot picks via recess appointments.
Oh wait, this is the Democratic Party we’re talking about. As hosts lamented, the already ugly signs of Trump’s dictatorial plots (ramping up deportation plans for brown people, installing pathetic sycophants and psychos as henchmen, vowing vengeance against his opponents and critics) have elicited barely audible whimpers of dissent.
Congressional Democrats wave around precedent and norms as if Trump won’t just use them to wipe. News outlets double down on treating this impending, democracy-ending plague as business-as-usual, with formerly vocal media critics (looking at you, MNSBC talking heads Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski) flying themselves for a collegial sitdown at Trump’s tacky golf club to tell the incoming sexual predator-in-chief that they were just kidding with all that “Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to America” stuff.
Jon Stewart was especially outraged, terming Democrats’ “willful bright-siding of this sh*tshow” as “The Audacity of Cope,” while noting that criticizing Republicans for flaunting the principles they supposedly held dear two weeks ago is a futile exercise. As Stewart put it with lacerating self-awareness, “Look, let this show be the utterly ineffective hypocrisy finders. I can tell you from experience, it does nothing.”
[On Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) whisper-quiet denunciation of Republicans’ plans to bury the report that Trump’s AG pick Matt Gaetz preyed on underage girls] “Buddy, if you’re trying to warn us about an imminent danger, then why are you so f**king boring? That’s like having a smoke detector that makes rainforest sounds.”
seth meyers
[On Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) denouncing Trump for not signing a mandatory ethics pledge] “Hear ye, hear ye! Hitler missed the reporting deadline! The war is over!”
jon stewart
“Do you know what Republicans would be saying right now if Democrats were trying to cover up a report about sex trafficking allegations over a minor? The breaking news banner on Fox would be so long you wouldn’t be able to see Sean Hannity screaming behind it.”
seth meyers
[On leaked reports that Gaetz participated in “up to 10 drug-fueled orgies”] “Ooh, he was this close to getting a free one.”
stephen colbert
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Republicans are playing chess and Democrats are in the nurse’s office because they glued their balls to their thigh.”
jon stewart
“That is our government in a nutshell. The rules say, ‘We can stop it.’ The loophole says, ‘F**k that!’ And so what are you left with? The last refuge of losers: the norms.”
jon stewart
[On there already being precedent to release an ethics report on a resigned member of Congress, citing the 1987 case of one William Boner—yes, that was a real congressman] “The decision to give Boner’s report a full release was… very hard.”
stephen colbert
[On GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) quickly reversing course to defy Democrats’ call for the House Ethics report on Matt Gaetz to be released—right after meeting with Trump] “Either Trump is a psycho who threatened Johnson or he’s an Olympic-level hypnotist.”
seth meyers
“In fairness, Mike Johnson is a devout Christian and a man of faith. He’s probably taking his guidance from the famous Bible verse we all know and love that says, ‘Thou shalt cover up allegations of sex trafficking if it gets in the way of tax cuts for the wealthy. Now who wants McDonald’s? We’re gonna eat it on Jesus’ private plane.'”
Seth meyers
“One way to tell us how bad the report is is to tell us we can’t see the report. If your girlfriend asks to see your last text you sent to your ex and your response is, ‘There’s nothing to see. And to prove it I’m, gonna smash my phone to pieces with a hammer,’ that’s not gonna be the end of that conversation.”
seth meyers
“But this is our future. The most mob-coded bully sh*t you can imagine. [Tony Soprano voice] ‘Hey Mike, I hear there’s a report about our friend Matt. In a perfect world, nobody ever sees it. And if they do, well there’s no easy way to say this, we call our friend Bobby and you sleep with the bears. We put your body in Central Park and make it look like a bike accident.'”
seth meyers
[On Democrats touting several glass ceiling-breaking elected Dems as they lose control of the House and Senate] “Wow, this is going to be the most diverse group of congresspeople to ever get their legislation blocked. So inspiring.”
jon stewart
[On Scarborough and Brzezinski mocking critics for asking why they’d sit down for dinner with Donald Trump] “Um, because you called him ‘Hitler.'”
jon stewart
“Oh I bet you really laid down the gauntlet, Joe. I bet you walked in there and just let him have it, didn’t you, Joey! I’m gonna do a one-act play called Joe and Mika Go to Mar-a-Lago: ‘I cannot, in good conscience—oooh, are those macaroons?'”
jon stewart
The Arsonist’s Ball
As history has shown and Americans have studiously ignored, Democratic administrations spend an inordinate amount of time trying to rebuild the stuff Republican administrations burn down. Call that partisan, but look at a damned chart.
Or look at Donald Trump and his cabal of white supremacist henchpeople as they waste zero time wheeling out their conservative fundamentalists’ wet dream Project 2025 agenda for America. Debt-ballooning tax cuts for themselves and their rich donors. Stripping health care from millions who need it. Strip-mining all protections from an environment already in the extinction-level danger zone. Gutting civil rights from already vulnerable communities. Pursuing racist deportation plans against workers who prop up every sector of the economy. (That last one is also just plain evil, but we’re making a point here.)
As several hosts explained while running down the attack on functional democratic governance that is Trump’s morally bankrupt reject pile of deliberately incompetent and subservient, cabinet-nominated yes-men, chaos is the only way the modern republican Party can thrive. “Light a match, watch everyone burn, and loot the ashes,” is apparently GOP voters’ solution to the fact that not everything in their lives is exactly how they thought it would be. So grab the hoses, people.
“As misguided as I think it was, Trump was elected to make things better, not to burn it all down. You guys talk about government like it’s a house-flipping show where you only do the demolition but not the renovating. ‘All right, we’re going to rip out this bathroom, pull out this carpet, tear this wall down with a sledgehammer, and then you’re never gonna see us again.'”
seth meyers
[On a photo of Trump gamboling with pals Kid Rock and Elon Musk at a UFC fight] “There they are, three guys who will all have top-level security clearance in two months.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump was not elected to turn things upside-down. He’s not the quirky new English teacher at an all-male boarding school. If Trump ever tells you to stand on your desk, it’s just so he doesn’t have to bend over to punch you in the nuts.”
seth meyers
[On reports of Americans stocking up on goods—including cars—prior to Trump implementing his economy-crippling tariffs plan] “Listen, if you have enough money to stock up on cars, I think you’re gonna be OK.”
jimmy fallon
[On Trump’s record-breaking rush to staff his cabinet] “No surprise there. As Stormy can tell you, if it involves his staff, Trump finishes very quickly.”
stephen colbert
Adios, Actual Leadership
There are plenty of things to criticize about the Biden administration. If there’s one thing the Trump era of politics has taught those able to see beyond screeching cries of, “Blame the [Blacks, Jews, women, trans people, immigrants, etc.],” it’s that idolatry of your leaders is a sure path to an attorney general who sleeps with underage girls. Allegedly.
But the fact that President Joe Biden took time from his last few months in office to fly to Brazil and take part in a pledge to protect the rainforests from Earth-despoiling corporate greedhead contrasts sharply with how Trump is scheming to, well, despoil the Earth like a rapacious greedhead. Is it a too-late gesture toward conservation when his administration could have taken more substantive steps to combat climate change? You bet.
Is mocking an 81-year-old Biden for feeling the stifling heat as he delivers an impassioned speech on behalf of the common good in the exact place where the losing battle for our planet’s lungs is being fought the sort of superficial zinger comedy that helped get us here? Also yes.
“He looks like a billionaire who regrets opening a live dinosaur park.”
jimmy fallon
“He looks like he’s been waiting three hours for his grandkids to get off the river boats at Animal Kingdom.”
jimmy fallon
“He looks like Jeff Probst in Season 396 of Survivor.”
jimmy fallon
“He looks like he’s about to ask if anyone wants to use a hidden immunity idol.”
seth meyers
[On Biden’s slow walk away from his jungle podium after his speech] “Where are you going?! He’s literally just walking away like, ‘Mr. President, I’m sorry—the tribe has spoken.'”
jon stewart
[As Biden] “I’m outta here. Peace out, Jack. What I’m doin’, I’m startin’ a new life out there in the trees. I packed a buck knife, some turkey jerky, and some ayahuasca. One sip, your body turns into stars, the universe flows through you like an eternal river, and you’re flyin’ a spaceship that runs on love. OK, I’m off, I gotta teach these spider monkeys how to play cribbage. C’mon, Jumanji.”
Stephen Colbert
“Maybe this is how we should do the transfer of power. The winner moves into the White House and the incumbent just wanders off into the jungle—so that his nutrients may be returned to the soil.”
jon stewart
“A new report just named Naples, Florida as the best place to retire. While the toughest place to retire is still the Amazon rainforest.”
jimmy fallon
Potpourri
[On Spirit Airlines filing for bankruptcy] “Turns out their strategy of being the worst airline in American history didn’t pay off.”
jimmy kimmel
[On the screaming pre-fight antics of YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake paul] “Hard to believe that kid’s gonna be president of the United States one day.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump claiming he “can’t get Elon Musk to leave” his golf resort] “Oh that’s easy—if you want him to leave, just invite his kids over.”
seth meyers
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