The ongoing dysfunction being wrought by Elon Musk’s DOGE was at the top of most host’s set lists for Monday’s monologues. And you can’t really blame them, what with Musk perilously weaving around a conservative event stage with a chainsaw, issuing email ultimatums demanding all federal employees divulge exactly what their (sometimes classified) tasks entail under pain of termination, and kicking back contentedly while Donald Trump licks his tootsies.
Sure, that last one was an A.I.-generated video some merry prankster at a DOGE-beset government building set to play all day on every TV in sight, but no late-night host is going to pass that one up. Here’s our Monday night rundown.
Jon Stewart
In an explosively funny monologue (seriously, he shattered a very real coffee mug for emphasis at one point), Jon Stewart took on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s DOGE-related chainsaw-ing of the federal workforce. And while Stewart branded himself “DOGE-curious,” it became quickly apparent that the Daily Show host was less interested in mocking and belittling public servants and exaggerating or straight-up lying about supposedly needless programs, and more into getting at the root causes of actual government waste.
As Stewart put it after smashing that mug in comic frustration (“I’ll be going to the hospital soon,” he joked sheepishly as he held his bloodied hand out of sight under his desk), the real targets shouldn’t be cherry-picked scientific studies that Republicans can guffaw over. (Say what you want about animal studies involving birds and cocaine, but your Ozempic weight loss is directly attributable to a study on gila monsters.) Instead, Stewart went hard after the systemic exploitation of loopholes and untold subsidies taken in by major corporations whose workers then have to beg for the same public assistance to survive that their corporate overlords reap to enrich themselves.
It’s enough to make a guy obliterate a mug.
“[Woody Allen voice] ‘When I said you were criminal parasites, I obviously wasn’t referring to—I have the bird flu, come back to work, please.'”
on the Trump administration rehiring fired workers—including researchers battling the bird flu
“Who amongst us hasn’t lied by saying something is 16 when it’s really two-and-a-half?”
on DOGE’s inflated savings claims
“And even if there was a 200-year-old man still walking around, he wouldn’t need Social Security. He’d be in Congress.”
on Trump and Musk’s ERRONEOUS CLAIMS that millions of hundred-plus year olds are receiving social security
Moving on to the solutions-and-mug-shattering phase, Stewart had some suggestions. Like cutting oil companies subsidies, closing hedge fund loopholes, and ending the trillion-plus dollar contracts for the disastrously obsolete F-35 fighter jet.
“I just saved us billions of dollars in 11 seconds! Just call me Big Balls!”
“We’re getting f*cked at a Diddy party and they’re making us buy the baby oil.”
on big pharma reaping massive subsidies and tax breaks while delivering consumers exorbitant prices
“Airlines get billions in bailouts that they use in stock buybacks and bonuses. But if you’re on food assistance, you’re not allowed to buy hot food with it. Because apparently heated entrées are for winners.”
“Every day, at 5 p.m. sharp, the Democrats should go live on Facebook and do the people’s audit. Find the absurdities and the remedies in our exploitative system. Get someone like AOC, or Jasmine Crockett, or Chris Murphy. [Photo of Chuck Schumer] Or anybody that doesn’t sound like they’re complaining that there isn’t any more frozen yogurt at the cafeteria in the Villages.”
“It’s not MAGA. It’s something more like: Make America Not Governed In Obviously Negative—whoa, abort!”
it’s an acronym. you’ll get it.
Stephen Colbert
There was some comedy crossover from show to show, as there is most nights. For example, Colbert, like Stewart, took aim at the fact that the United States has hopped teams for what’s traditionally been called “the Axis of Evil” by joining dictatorships North Korea and Russia in refusing to condemn Russia’s invasion of staunch U.S. ally Ukraine.
“‘Cause you know what, after all this time who can remember who invaded who? I mean it was three years ago. It might have been Chris Rock who threw his face at Will Smith’s slappin’ hand.”
“It’s subtle, but there’s been a little shift in our foreign policy. We’re gonna have to retroactively change a few of our Cold War movies, so get ready for A Hug for Red October.”
Colbert then also went after Elon Musk’s DOGE-ification of the federal workforce, while noting how Musk’s sunglasses-indoors, chainsaw-wielding, meme-quoting appearance at conservative gathering CPAC might provide a few clues abouthis erratic approach to cutting supposed waste.
“Musk celebrated gutting the federal government last week at CPAC, the National Conference of Brothers-in-Law You Don’t Talk to Any More.”
“Our federal workforce is in the clutches of a heartless billionaire who wants to colonize Mars with vehicles shaped like his penis. By which I mean Cybertrucks—he should see a doctor.”
“Now obviously, the only proper response to that is. ‘What did I do last week? 1.) Your mom. 2.) Your mom. 3.) Your mom. 4.) Your mom. And 5.) Your mom.'”
on musk’s EMAILED demand that all federal employees list five things they did LAST week, or be fired
“But Elon made sure folks would see it, because the email was labeled, ‘Importance: High.’ The sender? Even higher.”
on musk sending his email to government workers on a saturday afternoon
“[Very unemphatically] Oh no. Be careful. You might get hurt.”
after a clip of musk awkwardly waving around a chainsaw onstage
Perhaps taking a cue from Musk’s CPAC claim that “comedy is legal again” (Colbert expressed relief that his writers no longer have to smuggle in their jokes “prison-style”), someone at the DOGE-targeted Department of Housing and Urban Development apparently hacked the building-wide TV system to show a loop of an A.I. Donald Trump slavishly licking Elon Musk’s feet on Monday. Naturally, Colbert was on the case.
“Now, warning. If you have kids… get them in here to see how great this is.”
“Someone hacked the TV system and played this A.I. video of Trump slurpin’ on Elon’s toes. Or as Trump calls them, ‘ten-piece foot nuggets.'”
Jimmy Kimmel
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host has had his fill of all the DOGE madness and the “scoundrels” behind it as well.
“Trump has played golf on nine of his first 30 days of work, while you’re making payments on an egg salad sandwich.”
Kimmel’s suggestion that doge might look at trump’s millions-dollar golf budget for waste
“But Trump and Elon, what a team. We’ve got a dick and a tater in charge of everything.”
“I mean seriously, if that guy walked into your office and told you he was there to start making cuts, everybody would jump on him and put him in a headlock.”
after the Musk/chainsaw clip
“He’s right, we can’t make fun of anything any more. For instance, if I said that outfit he’s wearing looks like a coke dealer from 1993, I would be arrested.”
joining stephen colbert in thanking musk for making comedy legal again
“Comedy is still legal! And that right there is why you don’t fire a thousand nerds at once.”
on the AI foot video
The announcement that noted political muckraker Michael Wolff has a new Trump tell-all book coming out naturally haS Jimmy Kimmel’s attention.
“I love when a new Trump tell-all pops up. For me it’s the equivalent of a surprise Beyoncé album dropping.”
“The book claims Trump really wanted a female Vice President, but instead settled for a man who wears eyeliner.”
“I would bet almost anything Trump has no idea what the letters J and D stand for. ‘Johnny Depp? I don’t know.'”
on wolff’s claim that trump repeatedly forgets J.D. Vance’s name
“This is what hostage negotiators call proof of life.”
on Melania Trump’s first public appearance with her husband in a month, echoing wolff’s claim that she “loathes” donald
Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show host also breezed past the DOGE email news, with stopovers for the foot video news, and a little item about what those crazy kids are getting up to now.
“Well I’m having an odd day. This morning I got an email from NBC asking what I accomplished last week.”
“The deadline for workers to respond is tonight at midnight. It’s hard to take it seriously when you’re stealing rules from Cinderella.”
“The White House believes the [foot-licking] video was created by a disgruntled employee. So that narrows it down to the entire federal workforce.”
“Doctors are warning against a new viral TikTok trend in which users are dropping heavy objects on their feet. You know, at a certain point we just have to let evolution do its thing.”
Taylor Tomlinson
In the spring (okay, the icy depths of a frigid, interminable winter), the After Midnight hosts’ thoughts turn inevitably to the few things that still giver her joy: Timothée Chalamet, the death of sexual harassment-based fast casual dining, and baseball.
“Yeah, he was inspired by Michael Jordan. I presume specifically in the field of weird little mustaches.”
on Chalamet’s SAG Awards Best Actor win, in which he named the “greats” he wants to emulate
“This is so hot to me because it means he has never done stand-up comedy in his life.”
on chalamet being unable to figure out how to raise the microphone for his acceptance speech
Then it was on to the impending bankruptcy of the Hooters chain.
“Be sure to do a wellness check on your uncle today.”
“It doesn’t make sense because Hooters is usually the one restaurant that benefits from inflation. That was an uncle joke.”
And to finish off, Tomlinson noted the New York Yankees’ reversal of the team’s uniquely long-standing ban on players’ facial hair.
“To keep up with their rivals, the New York Mets announced that Mrs. Met will be given a full bush.”
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