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.
Fore! Er, I Mean Ten!
This might have broken a few late-night hosts. Seth Meyers spent much of his A Closer Look segment burying his face in his hands in despair. Jon Stewart worked himself into an exasperated rant about the media’s inability to focus on the big picture rather than one presidential candidate’s latest bout of verbal crazy-diarrhea. Yes, the big news with two weeks left until we find out whether or not we still live in a functioning democracy is…
Arnold Palmer’s dick.
[Sighs in late-night host-esque resignation.] Yes, Donald Trump entertained his crowd at a rally taking place in the birthplace of the late golf icon with a smirking admiration of the late golfing legend’s supposedly enormous penis. In an election news cycle where Donald Trump has threatened to sic the military on his political opponents, has admitted to engaging in illegal negotiations with foreign heads of state, has promised to set up a nation-wide deportation purge that includes hurling U.S. citizens as well as immigrants into detention camps, and where the former reality show host is awaiting sentencing for 34 felony convictions, this is now what everybody is talking about.
So let the dick jokes… commence.
“No surprise, just two weeks out from Election Day the biggest political story in America is a dead golfer’s giant penis.”
stephen colbert
“Afterwards you could donate ten dollars to Trump’s campaign by texting the eggplant emoji.”
jimmy fallon
[On Trump working up to the big dick thing by calling Palmer “all man”] “First of all, I don’t want to fact-check the former President. But Arnold Palmer wasn’t all man. He was half man, half lemonade.”
jon stewart
“Well, technically he was half man, half iced tea. That’s like a well known fact.”
seth meyers
“That’s why Arnold Palmer’s signature drink is half iced tea, half lemonade, stirred with a giant swizzle.”
stephen colbert
“I think one of his staffers must have said, ‘We need to focus on the polls’ and Trump was like, ‘Oh I’ll focus on the poles.'”
jimmy fallon
“But for Trump, this was one of his milder genital rants. This was kind of his Kids Bop genital rant. Classy, body positive, he was complimenting somebody else.”
jon stewart
[On Trump coyly pretending he wasn’t going to talk about it, right before talking about it] “‘I refuse to say it but I had to say it. Arnold Palmer was swinging a real titanium three wood. I mean this thing, you wanna lock the grip. You want an interlocked grip on that that thing. This thing could drive a par 5 from tee to hole and had a wicked dogleg in it.'”
stephen colbert
“While speaking over the weekend at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, former President Trump implied that golf legend Arnold Palmer had a large penis. But I think he was telling on himself because he said, ‘I swear to God, at least three inches.'”
seth meyers
[After Arnold Palmer’s daughter put out a condemning statement that could be best paraphrased as, “Ewww“] “No one wants to hear that about their dad. ‘Derek was a loving grandfather, an avid gardener, and hung like a clydesdale. Rest in peace, drillmaster. We’ll miss you, although we all know Donna could use a little break, am I right? Anyway, good luck closing the casket.'”
stephen colbert
“Now some might think waxing poetic over a deceased sports legend’s junk is not presidential. But may we never forget Reagan’s immortal words at the Berlin wall. [Clip of Reagan] ‘Mister Gorbachev, Jack Nicklaus has a ballsack the size of a baby head!'”
stephen colbert
“Well, still not as bad as that rally where he suggested that Mike Pence might be hung.”
seth meyers
“A lot of crazy to unpack here. But what stands out to me is the idea that professional golfers take group showers. It’s an individual sport, it’s not a team. You really think that Arnold Palmer, at the height of his career, was soaping it up down at the Y?”
stephen colbert
“If you go to a golf tournament and someone says, ‘Hey let’s all take a big shower together,’ get the hell out of there. That guy doesn’t work there okay? You’re about to play what we call a water hazard.”
stephen colbert
Unpacking Palmer’s Package
Of course, as Jon Stewart posited in increasing frustration, the media doesn’t actually have to fall for Trump’s distractions, whether or not his dong-obsessed rally ramblings are the result of some considered strategy to divert attention from his genuinely un-American plans to destroy democracy , or a dementia-addled brain collapsing like a forgotten jack o’lantern stuffed with rotting fast food.
Or maybe they do, as Stewart struggled to come to terms with his life at this point in time: “I don’t know why we have to parse everything this guy says so sternly. [Clip of Trump calling Democrats “the enemy within” and more dangerous than China and Russia] Hey… who wants fries? [Clip of Trump planning to use the military to “deal with” said Democrats] Y-you’re no fun at all. That’s not fun-loving and mischievous, that sounded quite threatening.”
“So with just two weeks until Election Day, voters have a choice. On the one hand, you’ve got Kamala Harris’ plan to stop price-gouging, lower prescription drug costs, mandate coverage of elder care, and give money to the parents of newborns and first-time homeowners. And on the other hand, you’ve got Donald Trump’s plan to let everyone know that Arnold Palmer had a big old doggy-dick.”
seth meyers
“But I do get that there’s a double standard at play. You imagine if Kamala Harris held a rally and like, ‘Billie Jean King, her vagina, wow! She’d come out of the shower and all the other tennis player’s would shout, Hello! Hello… hello… hello…”
jon stewart
“I hate this thing Republicans do whenever Trump says something insane and the media asks them about the insane thing. They act like reporters are the ones who bring it up out of nowhere. No one wants to talk about Arnold Palmer’s penis except for Donald Trump! I swear to God I never thought about it once until this weekend. And because I have this show, for the last two days people have been saying to me, ‘I’ll bet you’re gonna have a field day with Arnold Palmer’s penis.’ Like I have some weird kink where I like talking about famous golfer’s genitals. That’s how I found out about it! I was at a pumpkin patch trying to unplug from the news. Some stranger walks up to me, points to me and says, ‘Arnold Palmer’s penis!’ And I’m like, no context, and I’m like, ‘What the f**k is going on?!’ My kids are looking at me for answers and I got nothing. And this is Donald Trump’s America, you know? I’m gonna be picking out Christmas trees, a guy’s gonna come up to me and be like, ‘Catfish Hunter’s got a weird nut!’
seth meyers
“This is what gets us to the ultimate problem, which is this. Is any of the sh*t Trump says real? How are we supposed to understand what’s bullsh*t and what isn’t? Kamala Harris, she’s gotta have an 80-page presentation on exactly how this opportunity economy is gonna function and how it’s gonna be paid for. Meanwhile, the standard for Donald Trump is emotional vicinity. Apparently it doesn’t actually matter if the things he says are true. And if we try and dig down on the lies, he only gets lie-ier.”
jon stewart
“That’s his whole campaign right now. Ave Maria dance party—I’m gonna deport everybody. Football tailgate—Blame the Jews if I lose.”
jon stewart
“To all the Republican officials who seem very confident that Trump isn’t being serious when talking about using extreme measures to defeat his enemies, he’s already tried it. Remember that day he tried to overthrow the government? And I know it didn’t work. But attempted murder isn’t the same thing as ‘never tried the murder.'”
jon stewart
“So we are left with this surreal idea that somehow Trump’s absurdity renders him benign. We dismiss his threats because of how much fun he has expounding on the length, width, and girth of Arnold Palmer’s c**k.”
jon stewart
At Least It Kept Him From Talking Golf
Look, everybody has hobbies. And while not everyone’s hobby allows them to fleece the American taxpayer by forcing their government-mandated protection detail to rent golf carts at exorbitant rates from their own tacky resort, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with having a weird little passion that takes up an inordinate amount of your time. You know, as long as you don’t bore the living bejeezus out of everybody in your life with the compelling-only-to-you minutiae of, say, your golf habit, as Donald Trump did for 12 stultifying minutes even before he dropped the big Palmer dong on the crowd. Hey, you’ve gotta try and keep them from leaving somehow.
“Sorry Republicans, is this what you mean when you say Donald Trump has a plan? Because the only plan I can make out here is a plan to bore the sh*t out of his audience. I mean no wonder people leave his rallies early. After the first minute of that story everybody started looking down at their phones Googling, ‘Can you get a refund for free rally ticket?'”
seth meyers
“If you ever have to say the words, ‘for those of you who aren’t golfers,’ just stop talking. I got nothing against golfers, you do you. But I speak for all non-golfers when I say, we don’t wanna hear about your sh*t. We’re never sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, I wish I knew all this golf terminology!'”
seth meyers
“Your story is bad and long and doesn’t make any sense. Seriously man, if you want a podcast, I’m sure somebody’ll give you a podcast. And you can tell these stories to whoever wants to hear them but they can also fold their laundry while they’re listening.”
seth meyers
Do Your Want a Legally Adjudicated Rapist With That?
As testament to how very little the Trump camp has to work with when it comes to undermining Vice President Kamala Harris’ legitimacy as a presidential candidate, the conspiracy theory that Harris is lying about having put herself through college by working at McDonald’s is the stuff of sweaty, desperate farce. Case in point, Donald Trump worked the drive-thru at a McDonald’s, in the other weekend event that most people are talking about instead of the issues.
Now some may quibble that the restaurant in question was closed down for the staged photo-op. And that the “customers” Trump served were hand-selected Trump supporters who, rather than being the working class people surprised to see a major political figure slinging french fries, were campaign plants prepped with softball questions that Trump could use to—in one case—repeat his threat to not accept the results of any election he loses. Or that, as Seth Meyers noted of Trump’s cosplaying McDonald’s getup, “I mean look at him, he’s wearing that suit like it’s a last-minute Halloween costume. ‘What are you dressed as? Oh, an Undercover Boss they recognize in the first 30 seconds?'”
“He had a great time at McDonald’s because for 20 minutes Trump actually ran a successful business.”
jimmy fallon
“Well, McDonald’s screwed up my order again!”
seth meyers
“It does make sense he went to McDonald’s. He does look like if Grimace and the Hamburglar had a child.”
taylor tomlinson
“I love when he says ‘I’ve always wanted to work at a McDonald’s’ with a straight face and expects us to believe it. Oh do you? Well no one’s stopping you, bro. I noticed you didn’t pick up an application on your way out. Maybe you can get a job jumping out of the ball pit and scaring kids that’ve been there too long.”
seth meyers
“He actually would be the perfect McDonald’s mascot. Yeah, an orange-haired clown who frightens children and steals money.”
taylor tomlinson
“Give him the job, I implore you. I don’t care if his references don’t check out. Save democracy, give him the job.”
jon stewart
“While working at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s yesterday, former President Trump told reporters, ‘I love McDonald’s. I love jobs. I like to see good jobs.’ You know, I just realized if you replace ‘I’ with ‘me,’ he has the same vocabulary as Cookie Monster.”
seth meyers
“‘I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s. I’ve also always wanted to live at McDonald’s. I want to bathe in the ketchup and have a sleepover with Grimace, who Mayor McCheese says has an enormous purple ding-dong.'”
stephen colbert
“How the f**k is Donald Trump in a McDonald’s apron in the window of the fast food restaurant talking about whether or not he’ll overturn the popular vote real life? How is this real li… Did we all die during Covid? And is this some strange, surreal purgatory? Or maybe A.I. has already sucked up the sum total of human achievement and endeavors and what we’re all experiencing are merely the crumbs and detritus of human existence that A.I. thought was just too f**king weird to vacuum up.”
jon stewart
“The only reason the photo op happened in the first place is because Trump is triggered by the fact that Kamala Harris actually worked at McDonald’s. And he certainly wouldn’t make life better for actual fast food workers given that he’s against raising the minimum wage and recently bragged at a rally about how he refused to pay his employees overtime. He really said that. It turns out Donald Trump is a bigger dick than [clip of Jake Tapper saying ‘Arnold’Palmer’s penis.’]”
seth meyers
“What a weird story to try and poke holes in. It is hilarious to see Republicans go from ‘Obama wasn’t born here!’ to ‘Kamala never worked at McDonald’s!'”
taylor tomlinson
[On Trump asking one woman in the drive-thru with her kids, “How did you produce those kids?”] “‘How did you produce those kids?’ Is that an appropriate question? If you’re gonna ask how kids are made you don’t go to McDonald’s. You go to In-N-Out.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s 20-minute photo op at a closed-down McDonald’s] “He’s not the common man, this is just blue collar drag. But with more makeup.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“I love the idea that Harris campaign is the fake and phony one produced by Hollywood. Only one candidate in this race was an actual reality TV star who conducted fake business meetings in a fake boardroom and slathers himself in makeup like my kids painting a seashell in art class.”
seth meyers
[On the massive surge in early voting, where Harris voters outnumber Trump’s two to one] “If you think about it, Harris-Walz is the ticket of planning ahead. I’m pretty sure Tim Walz makes his family get to the airport three days early. ‘All right kids, pack yourself a pillow, they let you sleep in the Hudson News if you’re quiet.'”
stephen colbert
“During his speech at a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris last week, billionaire investor Mark Cuban said former President Trump would ruin Christmas by making gifts more expensive. While Trump said Christmas would be ruined by migrants eating Rudolph.”
seth meyers
“Former President Trump spoke last week at the Al Smith Memorial Foundation dinner and said that Vice President has ‘no intelligence whatsoever.’ While Trump has tons of it in his bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
seth meyers
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