Mon Night Monologues: Sawing Off the Judicial Branch

Monday was once again catch-up day for late-night hosts, a task made exponentially more difficult since Trump began his second term. Being off since Thursday means they have to pack in yet another weekend’s complement of executive orders, baffling and/or alarming social media posts, and the newest looming constitutional crisis into a single Monday monologue.

And this weekend was a doozy, even by Trump standards, as, apart from an eventful Super Bowl drop-by, Trump and the person many hosts are calling Trump’s co-president (if not supervisor) Elon Musk floated the idea of dealing with the growing number of federal judges blocking the administration’s dismantling of the government and other moves by simply declaring the Judicial Branch null and void. Here’s our own post-weekend rundown.

Seth Meyers

For Meyers, his A Closer Look segment at least provides an extended platform for the Late Night host to dig into some of the most pressing issues presented by a long weekend of Trump news. Aside from mocking Trump whipping out his Sharpie to create a new national holiday honoring the body of water he unnecessarily renamed (thus replacing existing national holidays like Martin Luther King Day and Women’s History Month), Meyers sought to wind up Trump by highlighting just how prominent unelected billionaire Elon Musk has become.

Referring to “President Elon Musk” getting a Time cover depicting him behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk while demoting Trump to “Musk’s second in command, New York businessman Donald Trump,” Meyers stuck the needle even further, showing how Trump’s feeble joking about the magazine inadequately masked a seriously wounded ego.

[On the Time cover] “Uh oh, I got a bad feeling someone’s about to rename another body of water. Maybe more than one. ‘I’m issuing a proclamation that the five Great Lakes will henceforth be known as Lake America, Lake America, Lake America, Lake America, and Lake America. And if you forget, there’s a helpful mnemonic device which is AAAAA!'”

“The only way this cover could have been worse for Trump is if they put a tiny little version of him on the desk in front of Elon.”

[On Trump defensively joking that he didn’t know Time was still in business, just two months after publicly thanking the magazine for naming him its Person of the Year] “You didn’t? You were just on the cover in December. Do you not remember anything that happened in front of Gulf of America Day?”

Of course, the potential brewing ego-fight between Musk and Trump was secondary over the weekend to the pair’s ongoing dismantling of entire government programs related to the oversight of—among other things—greedy billionaires looting the federal government and Americans’ sensitive personal information. With Musk, seemingly with either Trump’s approval or in unchecked zeal, gaining access to the Treasury Department’s payment systems, the Medicare and Medicaid databases, and seeking to eviscerate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Meyers laughed off Trump’s denial that a billionaire with major government contracts and inextricable financial ties to world governments would have anything to gain.

[On Trump telling reporters how surprised he is that the richest man in the world has so much time to spend taking apart government regulations] “If someone is spending a suspiciously large amount of time on something and you don’t know why, that’s a red flag. Trump’s like a guy who says, ‘You know, Dave, my trainer at the gym, spends so much time with my wife. He is so into her physical fitness journey. I personally wonder how he can devote the time to it when he’s so busy with his second career as an underwear model. You know what else is crazy? They keep ending up on the same vacations!”

[On the owner of SpaceX and other lucrative government contacts being in charge of cutting oversight] “You think you can just launch a rocket into space without going through some government red tape? If that were the case, then we would see mom and pop rocket companies going up all over the country. ‘Hey, ya’ll want to see the moon up close? Come on down to Dave’s Rockets of Sarasota—our rocket rides are safe and fun!'”

Jon Stewart

The current administration’s stampede toward constitutional crisis was on Jon Stewart’s mind as well, with The Daily Show‘s Monday host taking a long view of Donald Trump’s attacks on government regulation and the separation of powers. Like, a long, long view, as Stewart donned a series of increasingly era-elaborate fake mustaches to illustrate just how far back Trump and his Republican henchmen are seeking to wind back the clock.

A 1970’s-era ‘stache took care of Trump’s attacks on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, scaling back further to the 1950’s to encompass his plans to remove women’s bodily authority, no-fault divorce, and essentially any other pesky civil rights that distracted them from kitchens and babies. A handlebar mustache represented Trump’s yearning for the days of no income tax and unfettered loot-and-spend capitalism for the handful of industrialists the 1870’s held so high. And Simon Legree overseer’s villain lip wig stood in for Trump’s assault of birthright citizenship, coming as it did out of the need to account for the children of slaves.

It was all enough for Stewart to painfully rip of a series of fake mustaches in mock-shock at just how regressive things have gotten so very quickly.

“Who wouldn’t trade our current environment for 1870’s tariff-driven, be-candled, tuberculosis-laden, pre-industrial heyday?”

“Quick point of order, though. To the extent that we were at our richest from 1870 to 1913, it wasn’t so much ‘we’ as, like four guys. And we called them robber barons… as a sign of affection.”

[On Trump and the GOP’s current attempt to repeal all worker protection laws] “Meanwhile, the rest of America, the leading cause of death was falling into a vat at work.”

[On Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs’ bill to abolish the Occupational Health and Safety Administration] “To the vats! And fill mine with burning tallow boy!”

[On Trump railing against the “unqualified children” being granted birthright citizenship as per the 14th Amendment to the Constitution] “‘Don’t bring us your poor and huddled masses! Do you have any mathletes?'”

Ditching the fake facial hair for some real outrage, Stewart then went after the GOP for enabling Trump.

[On J.D. Vance deriding the ability of judges to constrain executive power] “Of course they’re allowed to adjudicate the boundaries of that power! That’s the whole f*cking point of the judiciary, to interpret whether those powers are legitimate. You went to law school mother f*cker!”

“The only alternative is the executive determines for himself what is constitutional. At which point there would be no guardrails against… ooohhhh.”

[On what he determines to be Democrats’ less than robust response to the GOP’s push to destroy the concept of checks and balances] “That’s the sales pitch? ‘We just need someone on their side willing to lose everything for progress. Like a Russian dog being shot into outer space.'”

Thankfully, Stewart had an ally in his stand against tyranny. Or, rather, a slow-clapping former colleague born in a monarchical former empire who butted in to welcome prodigal son American home to the bosom of kingly rule. That’s right, in advance of his own Last Week Tonight return on Sunday, John Oliver emerged to tell Stewart—and America—not to fight the comforting backslide into the smothering bosom of not-democracy.

“The point is, you told everybody you were going to be different. You weren’t going to turn out like your mean old dad who was so horrible to you when you were growing up. So we sat back. We let you spend your wild teen years experimenting with your ridiculous ideas of checks and balances because deep down we knew that when you got that nonsense out of your system, you’d be back.”

“Kings get sh*t done. Now, is it sh*t you want done? Not necessarily.”

“Invasions, economic exploitations, and now suggesting turning Gaza into a beachfront casino? Seems like even King George would have been like, ‘I don’t know guys. Feels like the situation’s a little more complicated than that, and I’m literally dying of medieval brain disease.'”

Jimmy Fallon

Jon Stewart wasn’t the only host to pull in some big-time comedy assistance on Monday. Over on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon, citing the suspicious morning-after Super Bowl absence of Philly natives The Roots, welcomed none other than late-night royalty Paul Shaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous band as his house band for the week. Oh, and Fallon also introduced Shaffer’s former boss, some guy named David Letterman to crash the monologue.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, won by The Roots’ beloved Eagles in a complete drubbing of the Kansas City Chiefs, Fallon had some sympathy for the losing squad. Reminding the audience of the two-time champs’ excellent regular season. Fallon threw to a montage of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl highlights. (They did, in fact, win the opening coin toss.)

“The Eagles scored 24 points in just the first half. 24, or in NFL terms, one full Bill Belichick girlfriend.”

“For all the Eagles fans it was the best night ever. And for everyone else, it was the longest three hours ever.”

Meanwhile, Tom Brady called his first Super Bowl as a broadcaster. Yeah, it’s amazing what they’re doing with A.I. these days.”

“This year there were lots of great commercials for brands like Pringles, Doritos, Totinos, Häagen-Dazs, and Little Caesars. Or as Donald Trump calls them, the food pyramid.”

“Trump left before the third quarter while the Chiefs left halfway through the first.”

Then it was time for that Letterman guy. Coming out to rapturous applause, the late-night legend feigned surprise that Shaffer appeared to be back in his old bandleader spot and congratulated Fallon—in his own special way.

“It this the 23rd hour of The Today Show?”

“Paul and I used to do a show, pretty much exactly like this. We didn’t do the Chuck E. Cheese crap, but something very similar.”

Jimmy Kimmel

Over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel held down the fort without any high-profile help, taking on the Super Bowl by showing how internet conspiracy kooks continue to be wrong about everything (sadly for them, the whole “NFL rigged the game for the Chiefs” thing went up in smoke) and how one perpetually controversial celebrity managed to upstage even Donald Trump for Super Bowl-adjacent craziness.

[On Kanye West’s series of mid-game tweets proclaiming himself a Nazi, among other things] “You know, you have to work pretty hard to make even walking the Grammys red carpet with your naked wife the 12th craziest thing that you did this week.”

“Everything he writes makes you think his account has been hacked.”

[On West buying local Super Bowl ads to tout a new website—and his new teeth] “It’s interesting because his teeth are the one thing in his head I wouldn’t replace immediately if I was him.”

[On the website West promoted selling only one item—a swastika t-shirt with the product code HH-01] “I wonder what HH stands for. Something tells me it’s not ‘Happy Holidays.'”

“At what point does he just change his name to Ye-Dolph and be done with it?”

Sticking with the Super Bowl, Kimmel took on Trump’s own mid-game social media rants, as the sitting president took time to gloat that the partisan crowd booed Chiefs fan Taylor Swift at one point, declared war on the penny, and other very important executive acts.

“Well, she didn’t get ‘booed out of the stadium.’ Unlike you she stayed for the whole game.”

“Trump’s just jealous of Taylor Swift because she’s got more followers, and more money, and no kids than he does.”

“There is no better metaphor for a Trump presidency than a military flyover over a domed Super Bowl stadium.”

[On Trump posting that he’s doing away with the penny (it takes an act of Congress to abolish the penny)] “He’s declared war on pennies because he’s tired of Lincoln being the only president bronzer than he is.”