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.
Darker Than the The Purge
That’s Donald Trump’s final push for Americans’ votes with barely a month until Election Day. In a series of, even for him, incoherent and mumbly campaign stops this past week, the GOP candidate and unquestioned Chosen One has really ramped up his “blame the brown people” ground game, a Daily Show montage revealing Trump essentially leaping out from behind the curtains and screaming, “Boo! Mexicans!” at his dutifully quivering white crowds.
America, in Donald Trump’s fear-mongering, racist view, is alternately a “hellhole,” and a “crime-ridden, terror-filled dumping ground,” where decent, God-fearing (white) families have their morning breakfasts disrupted by “bloodshed, chaos, and violent crime” when they’re not literally having “savages” striding into their kitchens to “cut their throats” and “tear them to shreds.” Of course, by any measure adopted by people not glassy-eyed with the GOP Kool-Aid of hate, bigotry, and Bizarro World anti-facts, under the Biden administration, violent crime is down dramatically while illegal immigration—Republicans’ go-to boogeyman any time someone points to a single Democratic achievement—is also at historic lows.
Couple Trump’s hyperbolic scare tactics about immigrants with his weekend campaign musing that crime would decrease if American police were allowed to get “really rough” in “one really violent day” where all those pesky civil rights and rules against police brutality were suspended, and it doesn’t take a Holocaust scholar to see what is really being said. Oh wait, Holocaust scholars are pointing out that Trump’s rhetoric is exactly the game plan Hitler employed when calling for what became known as Kristallnacht, when a racist demagogue’s political rhetoric inspired his minions to go on one really violent night-long rampage against a minority community he’d been demonizing as “vermin” and “savages” “poisoning the country’s blood.”
Naturally, most Americans are less inclined to make historical parallels than Hollywood ones, with late-night hosts jumping on the queasy joke train of comparing Trump’s openly inciting hate speech to The Purge franchise, where a right-wing authoritarian government drums up a single night’s free-for-all of consequence-free mayhem in order to distract the pubic with scapegoating violence. As those darn egghead scholars of fascism and xenophobic hate-mongers throughout history have pointed out however, The Purge turned the American public on itself. Trump’s is explicitly calling for government-backed thugs to beat the living hell out of anyone they’re directed to attack. (Sure, it’s implied that MAGA “very fine people” will quickly join in as well.) Still, hosts at least made the Purge connection, which is more than most “respectable” news outlets have been willing to do.
“Good news, he stopped talking about Hannibal Lecter. Bad news, he suggested we do the Purge instead.”
jimmy kimmel
[After Trump muses how Hollywood actors couldn’t play illegal immigrants because the immigrants are too manly… or something?] “Trump almost sounds jealous of these guys he’s describing. ‘These guys have the whole package, rippling biceps, strong jawline, very charismatic, winning personalities, they’ll sweep you off your feet. And unfortunately for our country, they have terrific beach bodies.”
seth meyers
“Yep, Trump wants The Purge while his staff wishes he would reenact A Quiet Place.”
jimmy kimmel
“Did he just suggest the Purge for stealing from CVS? ‘If that doesn’t work, I have other ideas, okay? We put all the shoplifters on a bus with Keanu Reeves, if it goes slower than 50 miles per hour, blammo! Or how about this, we take all the criminals, we sew their mouths to the other criminals’ butts. We put them in a long line, it’s called a Human Justice-pede. If that fails, we take all the shoplifters, we cram them in a wardrobe, a big one. Behind all the coats is a magical land with a lamppost and some goat guy. And all the criminal get mauled by the Jesus lion. For one hour.”
stephen colbert
[Noting how Trump, in addition to advocating for legal suspect-beating this weekend, also called for abolishing the Department of Education, prosecuting Google for supposedly rigging search results against him, denying that people leaving his rallies are actually leaving, calling immigrants ‘animals,’ and demanding Fox News stop showing his opponent’s speeches] “If anyone in your life had a weekend like this, you’d be concerned. Like if your dad had a series of similar outbursts, you’d call your siblings to figure out what to do.”
jimmy kimmel
[After Trump interrupted himself accusing Biden and Harris of “destroying America” to admit “this is a dark speech”] “Yes, yes, this is a very dark speech. It’s the darkest speech since Reagan said this: [Dubbed Regan voice] ‘Mr. Gorbachev, we all die alone.'”
stephen colbert
Oh, But She’s Too Vague
Sometimes it’s all a late-night comedian can do to find new ways to make amusing an entire political party’s complete abandonment of shared reality just an election year gambit. Jon Stewart even whipped out a handy chart to dutifully track Donald Trump’s recent interview responses to nominally substantive policy questions, only to abandon the task after ditching his original chart with one whose y-axis was swapped out to read, “What the f#@k are you talking about?”
Yes, Vice President Kamala Harris, who recently put out an 81-page economic plan for America is “vague” on policy, while Donald Trump, who daily rants about taking violent police off the leash to brutalize suspects and how his beach body is totally better than president Biden’s is handled by the ever-staid mainstream press with a helpful policy known as “sanewashing.” As ever, the right-wing claim that the news has a liberal bias is belied by a press that at the very least is constitutionally incapable of abandoning traditional assumptions that one presidential candidate is not a sundowning, barely comprehensible would-be dictator, and at the worst, is suspiciously soft-pedaling damning accuracy about Donald Trump in apparent fealty to their overwhelmingly right-wing corporate owners.
Oh, and Donald Trump can’t stop seeing invisible insects everywhere.
[After a montage of pundits claiming that Harris lacks detailed policies] “‘We demand that! If there is one thing that the American public demands, it is a detailed plan of—ohhh, The Golden Bachelorette!'”
jon stewart
[On Trump being unable to refrain from swatting at a speech-interrupting fly] “I like when Trump plays tough. This guy wants to unleash the Purge on the country but if he sees a fly buzz by, he loses his sh*t.”
seth meyers
“How would Trump even handle a situation like the Purge? ‘Don’t worry everyone, the panic room is completely secure. We’ll be safe from the Purge as long as we keep the door closed. [Waving arms frantically] Oh, oh God, there’s a fly in here. I hate flies!'”
seth meyers
[After Trump interrupts an Iowa speech to state that he didn’t know they had flies in Iowa] “And in case you’re wondering, here’s a handy mnemonic device to remember which states have flies: All of ‘em!”
seth meyers
[After Trump “answers” a question about IVF by talking about his suspect plan to not tax workers’ tips] “I get it now. So you see, IVF fertilizes and egg with the sperm, and sperm comes from a penis and a penis has a tip. So I can only assume Donald Trump is talking about circumcision which Jews call a tax on tips. All right, let’s move on.”
jon stewart
[After a clip of Trump claiming that Kamala Harris uses a smartphone app to immediately let immigrants into the country(?)] “That’s not a thing. You’re confusing the internationally recognized right to seek asylum with Candy Crush. ‘They have a phone app they use to let in illegal migrants like Liquorice Larry, Cupcake Carl, and the Jelly Queen.'”
seth meyers
[On Trump going on to claim, “nobody knows” what an app is] “You don’t know what a phone app is? This is huge. All we have to do is introduce Trump to GrubHub and he’ll never leave his house again.”
seth meyers
“I feel like we do. I feel like we have a pretty good—you have to understand, for Trump an app is the mozzarella sticks he eats before he eats the other mozzarella sticks.”
jimmy kimmel
“And also, what do you mean you don’t know what a phone app is? You have one. You have your own phone app called Truth Social.”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s segue into marveling over the cutting edge technology that is TiVo] “Remember when everyone thought Biden was the old guy in the race? Trump doesn’t know what a phone app is and thinks TiVo is the greatest invention of all time. Can you imagine how he’d react if he walked into an Apple Store? He’d probably think he’s on the deck of the USS Enterprise.”
seth meyers
[After Trump realizes he’s just confessed to wage theft by bragging about never paying his workers overtime] “Yeah, you’re right, you shouldn’t have said that. You shouldn’t have said it at all because you’re admitting to f**king people over who worked for you.”
jon stewart
“This is why he’s so beloved by the middle class. The only thing he hated more than overtime was paying his employees at all.”
jimmy kimmel
[After Trump laughed it up in his Elon Musk interview about firing striking workers] “I got to say, every time Trump talks about workers, it’s like watching A Christmas Carol in reverse. ‘I just fired these three ghosts who were trying to get overtime!'”
jon stewart
“‘And don’t get started on maternity leave.'”
jimmy kimmel
[After free speech advocate Trump demands late-night hosts be jailed for doing jokes about him] “Isn’t being on basic cable at 11:00 p.m. punishment enough?”
jon stewart
[After circling the two teleprompters flanking Donald Trump after Trump claimed, “Isn’t it nice to have a president who doesn’t need a teleprompter?” (Note: Donald Trump is not the President)] “Only Donald Trump would say he doesn’t need a teleprompter while reading off two teleprompters. Or maybe those are sneeze guards he bought when the Sizzler in Palm Beach went out of business.”
jimmy kimmel
Debate Vice
The first and only Vice Presidential debate takes place tomorrow night on CBS, which, with all the courage and integrity of CBS News legends like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Morrow, have decided that they’re too chicken to risk Donald Trump’s ABC-style backlash by actually doing any fact-checking. It’s the first showdown between folksy, universally likable Democrat Tim Walz and J.D. Vance, a guy who thinks that women who don’t have children are miserable, incomplete freaks, made up racist conspiracies about immigrants eating pets, and orders donuts like an alien attempting to pass as one of the hu-mans. It should be a hoot.
“Of course prime time debate means it will delay the premier of the new CBS sitcom, Ghost Sheldon: As Long as He’s Profitable, We Will Not Let Him Die. We will chain his soul to a radiator.”
stephen colbert
“What are the moderators going to be doing, the Wordle?”
jimmy kimmel
“Right now both guys are doing last minute prep. Walz is working on his comebacks while Vance is thinking of a random group of people and a random pet they’re eating.”
jimmy fallon
“But up ’til now, J.D. Vance’s biggest obstacle in appealing to voters is that he is J.D. Vance.”
stephen colbert
“All he has to do is super quickly learn what human interaction is.”
jimmy fallon
[On the fact that both candidates will debate while standing] “I guess they were worried that J.D. Vance might get distracted by a sexy office chair.”
jimmy kimmel
“Here’s a fun game to play during this Halloween season. If you see someone buying a ton of eye makeup, try to guess if their costume is Beetlejuice or J.D. Vance.”
jimmy fallon
“This is true, his current favorability rating is negative 11 points. Putting him right between ‘unexplainable skin rash’ and ‘watching Euphoria with your parents in the room.'”
stephen colbert
“[In a poll], voters were more likely to describe Walz as ‘honest,’ ‘trustworthy,’ and ‘caring,’ while they were more likely to describe Vance as ‘nervous,’ ‘unsettling,’ and ‘damp.'”
jimmy kimmel
“Today, Trump asked Vance if he needed any debate advice and Vance was like, ‘Absolutely, do you have Kamala’s number?'”
jimmy fallon
Call 1-800-Rent-a-Family
Perhaps terrified of J.D. Vance moving on from mocking childless women to belittle single men (as if), Virginia Republican congressional candidate Derek Anderson (R-Guyville) has been sending out campaign photos picturing him standing with his arms around a lovely women and three young daughters. The thing is, Derek Anderson doesn’t have any of those things, instead using the wife and children of a friend to present the smiling white nuclear family image all GOP voters view as the default. Oh, and this just in—Republicans continue to demand that people stop calling them weird.
“That’s right, those people smiling with Republican candidate Derek Anderson are not his family. Oh, did you assume they were just because he was standing behind them protectively? Perverts.”
taylor tomlinson
“He asked his friend to borrow his wife and kids for a photo. Which must have been a comfortable conversation. ‘We’ll just pretend that you died, it’ll be fine.'”
jimmy kimmel
“Now I’m no politician, but I don’t think you should have the same casting process for a campaign video as someone making an indie short film.”
taylor tomlinson
“This feels like he got on an Instagram story and posted, ‘Hey, shooting a thing tomorrow, trying to look normal, anyone have a wife/kids I can borrow. Non-union.'”
taylor tomlinson
“Look, I do get why he felt the need to pretend to have a wife and kids. It’s comforting to people like me. I’ve said it before, I will say it again, I do not trust a single man in politics.”
taylor tomlinson
Let Them Eat Nuggies
Taking time away from rambling incoherently about big, handsome, terrifying immigrants, Trump took time out to go to the Alabama-Georgia college football game on Saturday. Before leaving at halftime once he’d snagged that all-important photo op with the likes of failed MAGA candidate Herschel Walker, failed MAGA musicians Kid Rock and Hank Williams Jr., and Alabama Republican ass-kissers Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt, Trump stopped by the concession stand to stand behind protective barriers and toss boxes of chicken nuggets like paper towel rolls to the assembled, hungry masses.
[On Trump’s reported game time snack of two McDonald’s fish sandwiches, a Domino’s pizza, and hot dogs] “Two McDonald’s fish filet and Domino’s pizza. After hearing his order, voters were like, ‘You know, this VP debate may be more important than we think.'”
jimmy fallon
“He’s on the ‘never see your penis again’ diet.”
jimmy kimmel
“While everyone was watching the game, Trump was cheering on the Domino’s pizza tracker. ‘Only 10 yards! Go, go, go!'”
jimmy fallon
“That’s not a food order, that is an assassination attempt.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump hasn’t yet said if he supports legalizing marijuana but his diet certainly has.”
jimmy fallon
“Alabama won the game, 41-34, but Trump called the head coach of Georgia today and asked him to find another eight points, so we’ll see.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trumps’ halftime exit] “‘Get me out of here, these people look like they mow their own lawns.'”
stephen colbert
“You know, he treats people the same way they treat dolphins at Sea World. The king, tossing bread to the peasants.”
jimmy kimmel
Potpourri
[On the outage that put everyone’s Verizon phone into SOS mode] “Sprint was like, ‘If it makes you feel any better our entire company is in SOS mode.'”
jimmy fallon
[On Kamala Harris raising $29 million from a single Hollywood fundraiser over the weekend] “28 million dollars is the same budget for the original Die Hard. Which inspired her new slogan, “Yippie-Ki-Yay, MotherTrumper!'”
stephen colbert
[On a Google plan to turn people’s notes into A.I. generated podcasts] “Google, why are you taking podcasting jobs away from men? What are guys in Brooklyn supposed to do now, work with their hands?”
taylor tomlinson
“I also shudder to think what an unemployed podcaster will do next. That sounds like a villain origin story. I think that’s how we got the Joker.”
taylor tomlinson
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