Mon Night Monologues: Roads High and Low Lead to Trump

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.

Trial Media on Trial

There were only two late-night hosts on duty in a week when opening arguments in Donald Trump’s election interference trial began. Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel alone, therefore, were left to apply their signature takes to the official start of the first-ever criminal trial for a former U.S. President, one which not only hinges on Trump’s alleged affair with (and subsequent hush money payment to) adult film actress Stormy Daniels, but where the first witness to be called will be the former National Enquirer publisher and Trump pal whose name happens to be David Pecker. (Who is alleged to have both planted fake stories about Trump opponents and bought and buried stories damning to Trump.)

Truly, the opportunities for humor both high and very, very low exist simultaneously, and while it’s perhaps reductive to say that The Daily Show went high while Jimmy Kimmel Live! went the other way, it’s also not inaccurate. Stewart, with a welcome little corrective drop-by from former Daily Show correspondent Jessica Williams, delivered an impassioned, occasionally profane takedown of the media’s once-more sensationalistic and easily distracted coverage of the minutia surrounding the trial, with Stewart decrying wall-to-wall coverage of the “all-encompassing spectacle of the most banal details” in lieu of substantive, big-picture analysis. Or, as the more scandal-hungry Williams chided her former boss upon interrupting Stewart’s final scolding, “Jon Stewart hates fun.”

[After a montage of media types promising that they’ve learned from past experience how to cover Trump] “So brave. Well done. And I think for this trial we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit. Or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies.”
jon stewart

[Mimicking one correspondent’s purple prose about Trump arriving at court] “He arrived at the intersection of American history. Where he put a quarter in the parking meter of destiny, leaving the car looking to avoid stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence.”
jon stewart

“Are we gonna follow this guy to court every f**king day? Are you trying to make this O.J.? It’s not a chase, he’s commuting.”
jon stewart

[On news shows devoting airtime to deciphering courtroom sketches] “It’s a sketch. Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was a… It’d be like looking at The Last Supper and saying, ‘Why do you think Jesus looks so sad here?'”
jon stewart

“Look, at some point in this trial something important and revelatory is going to happen, but none of us are going to notice because the hours spent on his speculative facial tics. If the media tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullsh*t is earth-shattering, we won’t believe you when it’s really interesting. It’s your classic Boy Who Cried Wolf Blitzer.”
jon stewart

“We’ve got a long ways to go here. It’s the first day of the first of his 438 trials to come. Pace yourselves. And if you’re bored, you can always start planning how you’re going to f**k up covering his next trial, and the sober mea culpa you’ll deliver during his next term as President.”
jon stewart

Rebuttal: Williams

“Oh Jon, please, you’re killing me, my poor, sweet, naive older-than-I remember Jon. We need this messy bullsh*t spectacle. Every other news story is a massive bummer. This Trump trial is like an open window in a Greyhound bus full of farts.”
jessica williams

“This trial is a gift. An extremely gross old man/former President might go to prison for banging a porn star and trying to pay her off and you don’t want us to cover that sh*t all day long? Jon, the first witness is named named David Pecker!”
Jessica Williams

“Here you come with your old-timey, high-falutin’ media critique, ruining our good time just like you ruined the 2012 Daily Show Christmas party.”
Jessica Williams

[Insert Fart Joke Here]

Jimmy Kimmel, as has been noted, truly knows how to get under Donald Trump’s skin. Not only has Trump devoted more social media time ranting about Kimmel than any other late-night host, it appears that Kimmel’s penchant for low blows and petty name-calling is the sort of comedy bait that the former President can’t help but snap at. With a salacious trial, the name “Pecker,” and, yes, the multiple-sources allegations that, in addition to falling asleep, Trump is spending his time in court passing copious clouds of gas, all the ammunition was right there. What, is Jimmy Kimmel going to pass any of that up? [Cue lots and lots of Trump speeches doctored with comedy fart noises.]

“It’s the city that never sleeps vs. the defendant who keeps nodding off during the trial.”
jimmy kimmel

[On Trump’s lawyer stating in his opening statement that his client has not broken the law] “He’s a lawyer and he’s funny, that’s impressive.”
jimmy kimmel

“He and Trump also said there’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election—and there’s nothing wrong with playing ‘hide the mushroom’ with the star of the movie Hot Showers 6.”
jimmy kimmel

[After a clip of Trump making some sort of point about not being liable because an invoice’s signature line is so small] “That’s like a bank robber going, ‘I went into the bank, I took out money, I came out of the bank with the money—millions of people do that every day, now I’m a criminal?”
jimmy kimmel

[On the apparent Trump strategy of denying he ever had sex with Stormy Daniels] “I could get him to admit that in one second. All you have to do is say, ‘Clearly, Mr. Trump is not attractive, famous, nor wealthy enough to entice such a desirable adult film star.’ He’d jump up on his hands and knees and show you every position they did it in.”
jimmy kimmel

[On the second-hand fart reports] “It would not be right for me to state that he was, so I cannot, in good conscience, report that Trump was pumping gas like a Barstow Texaco.”
jimmy kimmel

“Here’s the thing, there’s no way to prove that Donald Trump was the one who dealt it. So please don’t repost this video with a dumb caption like ‘Julius Squeezer,’ or ‘The Shart of the Deal,’ or ‘You have the right to remain silent but deadly.'”
jimmy kimmel