
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.
So, Anything Happen Last Week?
Look, nobody could have predicted how quickly a duly selected New York jury would convict Donald Trump of all 34 counts in his felony trial for falsifying financial records to hide his serial adultery to sway an election. But c’mon, late-night hosts—taking the first week of jury deliberations off for vacation? Well, with only Jimmy Kimmel having had the foresight to schedule new shows last week (thus getting a head start on all the monologue schadenfreude), that just means that Messrs. Colbert Stewart, Meyers, and Fallon all had extra time to kick back, laugh themselves silly at the first-time-ever spectacle of a former United States President being convicted in a criminal court, and then get down to work writing all the jokes they’d secretly feared they’d never get to deliver. (Trusty 30 Rock cue card legend Wally Feresten even got in on the fun, finally whipping out the cobweb-strewn “Donald Trump is guilty” card for boss Seth Meyers to read.)
As with Kimmel, who showed no sign of running out of Trump-bashing glee in his second week of post-conviction jokes, everybody took turns playing extended former President and forever felon piñata for most of their monologue time on Monday. Stephen Colbert made a point of accurately referring to the former head of state with various permutations of the phrase “convicted felon Donald Trump” at every opportunity, and wheeled out a newly constructed, scotch-filled advent calendar to mark down the days until Trump’s July 11 sentencing. Meanwhile, Seth Meyers played most of the extended cut of a news anchor reading out all 34 guilty verdicts as they came in and noted, “I watched that clip so many times, I have it on Blu-ray now.”
“I want to start by addressing the pessimists who say, ‘I don’t think this conviction will make a difference.’ Not. Today.”
seth meyers
“I agree this is truly an historic moment, as Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. President convicted of a crime. Although they almost nailed Martin Van Buren for hot-wiring a horse.”
stephen colbert
“They were gonna put him in an orange jumpsuit but it seemed redundant.”
jimmy fallon
“Here’s a good rule of thumb. If you have a closet full of skeletons, don’t announce a campaign for the most closely scrutinized office in the entire world. This is like someone in the witness protection program joining the Real Housewives of New Jersey.”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s sentencing taking place four days before the Republican National Convention] “It’s gonna be The RNC Live from Cell Block B, with a keynote speech from his warden, his cellmate Spider, that one guard who smuggles in cellphones up his butt. And, for the cocktail hour, enjoy complimentary toilet wine!”
stephen colbert
“Trump will be sentenced on July 11, and his lawyers told him, ‘You should get your affairs in order.’ Trump was like, That’s what got me in trouble in the first place.'”
jimmy fallon
[On Trump’s post-conviction excuses] “‘I couldn’t testify because if I lied that’s perjury’ is not the iron-clad defense he thinks it is.”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s post-conviction meltdown] “It’s true… just think about that. If it could happen to him. it could happen to anyone—who commits crimes.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s post-conviction complaints] “How dare you explain what I did to my wife to my wife.”
jimmy kimmel
“Just because there’s ample evidence and a jury believes it, anyone could now be found guilty. Do we really want to live in an America where the law is applied equally regardless of how rich you are?”
stephen colbert
“Former President Trump has been found guilty on all 34 charges in his criminal hush money trial and faces up to four years in prison. Well, for what its worth, all your friends are already there, you know? It’s like what my wife tells me on the way to a dinner party, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll know people.'”
seth meyers
“If you want to send Melania your support, send her a message on any of the five dating apps she just joined.”
jimmy fallon
“In a new interview after his conviction, former President Trump said that his hush money criminal trial was held in ‘maybe the worst area in the whole country’ for him. That’s right, his home town where people know him best.”
seth meyers
[On Trump supporters’ claims that the Biden administration is orchestrating Trump’s many prosecutions] “Oh my God! The justice system hunts Republicans while protecting Democrats! Someone should mention that to such unprotected Democrats as Senator Robert Menendez and Congressman Henry Cuellar, both facing corruption charges brought by our Department of Justice. Not to mention Hunter Biden was facing jury selection in a federal gun charges trial f**king today!”
jon stewart
“Somehow, even though Joe Biden has weaponized the American justice system, using them as puppets to prosecute his rivals, somehow this one that could get his son 26 years in prison slipped through his iron grip.”
jimmy kimmel
“The Party Told You To Reject the Evidence of Your Eyes and Ears”
That’s Orwell, as everyone bombarded online by right-wingers deliberately missing the point of the 1984 author’s warning about creeping fascism can tell you. After Trump’s conviction, the adjudicated rapist and convicted felon sat down with what Jon Stewart termed “the Fox & Friends B Team” for a typically soft-balled interview, where the guy who also had to pay $25 million to victims of his fraudulent university put on a straight face and denied ever saying “Lock her up” regarding his former political opponent Hillary Clinton.
Seemingly everyone hearing that statement other than Fox News’ Will Cain and his two side-fluffers would have to take a long, incredulous pause there, as Trump’s evidence-free “Lock her up” chant was his go-to crowd-pleasing 2016 campaign refrain. (As backed up by literally every recording device in the world.) Indeed, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers presented a comic master class in the art of the pregnant pause as they broke down the utter, shameless mendacity of chosen GOP leader Donald Trump before soldiering on to try an unpack just what the hell was the strategy behind such an easily and immediately debunked lie.
[On Trump claiming the public “won’t stand” for him going to jail] “Oh. It would be tough for ‘the public?’ Actually, I happen to have a large number of the public here. Hey public what do you all think about Trump going to jail?” [Cue several minutes of boisterous cheers segueing into a “Lock him up!” chant] There you have it—I didn’t say, ‘Lock him up,’ the people said, ‘Lock him up.'”
stephen colbert
“”That’s like Bart Simpson claiming he never said ‘Cowabunga.'”
seth meyers
[Trump voice] “‘Folks, I was talking about Hilary Swank, okay? No baby is worth a million dollars.'”
stephen colbert
“What the f**k? You never said ‘Lock her up?’ I think I remember you saying it to her face in a debate.”
jon stewart
“‘The people’ said ‘Lock her up?’ That was your whole campaign—stop it. We were there, we remember. It’s like if Arby’s said, ‘We never said We Have the Meats, the people said We Have the Meats.'”
stephen colbert
“Donald Trump saying he never said ‘Lock her up’ brings us to a segment called, What’s the Play Here? I mean obviously we have clips that prove he said ‘Lock her up,’ and he knows we have clips that prove he said it. So what’s the play here? Is he trying to bait me into showing the clips to make me seem like the bully and him seem like the victim? Or does he think it doesn’t matter if we show the clips because no one who believes him is also watching this show? I mean, is there a single, living human who’s thinking, ‘Maybe he didn’t say Lock Her Up’ and, also, ‘I never miss A Closer Look?’ What’s… what’s the play here? Maybe this is his plan to send me into an existential crisis trying to choose between trying to prove he’s lying to an audience that already knows he’s lying, or not showing the clip, which, sure, saves us time, but also lets him off the hook. But do we not risk falling into the same trap that the media continues to fall into with Trump, where the flood of lies, contradictions, and mistruths is so unending that you throw up your hands and say, ‘What does any of it even matter?’ [Long pause] What’s the play here? You know what, it does matter. It might not make a difference but it does matter. Sometimes, you gotta be like a New York jury who knows bullsh*t when you see it. You never said, ‘Lock her up?’ Roll the clips!”
seth meyers
“And that ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, is why we need courts. It does appear to be the last place in America where you can’t just say whatever the f**k you want.”
jon stewart
If These Two Crazy Kids Can’t Make It Work…
Much of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show monologue was spent excoriating the news media as a whole for its utter failure to push back on the MAGA movement’s insistence on living in its own, fact-free reality. Stewart pointed to even so-called “mainstream” outlets for pandering to those Republicans asserting—just to pick one example—that Donald Trump never said “Lock her up” once in his entire life. The whole angry rant is worth a watch, but a journalistic sideshow this past weekend was the recent wedding of one of the prime architects of that alternate reality of white grievance and sticking fingers in ears while chanting, “Lalalalala, I can’t hear you!,’ Rupert Murdoch. It’s the fifth stab at making conservative “traditional marriage” work for the 93-year-old former Fox News propagandist, and the lucky gal signing the impenetrable pre-nuptial agreement this time is one Yelena Zhukova, a Russian national and former wife of a Putin-connected oligarch, which checks out.
“93-year-old billionaire Rupert Murdoch got married over the weekend to his fifth and—I’m gonna say—final wife?”
seth meyers
“At the ripe age of 93, Rupey has found love again. ‘Cause over the weekend he married his fifth wife, Yelena Zhukova. It was the world’s first open casket wedding.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“Mexico has elected its first woman President, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. ‘Congratulations!,’ screamed Hillary Clinton, into a pillow.”
seth meyers
[After Joe Biden put on a football helmet during the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs’ White House visit] “To be safe, Democrats are making him wear it ’til November.”
jimmy fallon
“The largest stegosaurus fossil ever found is set to go up for auction next month, and is expected to sell for up to six million of Nic Cage’s dollars.”
seth meyers
“Cucumbers sold in 14 states have been recalled over potential salmonella contamination. It’s the first time in American history a recall has affected no one.”
jimmy fallon
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