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.
We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Rally
On Sunday, Donald Trump held his first major rally following his conviction on 34 counts of financial fraud to cover up a porn star affair and steal an election, and it… didn’t go great. For one thing, there have been allegations that his campaign put out ads offering to pay people to attend. For another, the Nevada rally was held outdoors in over 100-degree heat, seeing multiple Trump supporters—paid or not—require medical attention as happened in a previous rally in equally stifling Arizona. Then there were Trump’s remarks themselves, which continue to indicate that the 77 year-old candidate is completely losing it.
Starting out by ranting at length about the local contractors he pays to install the obviously necessary teleprompters (despite his longtime claims that teleprompters are for women and doddering old Presidential candidates), Trump threatened not to pay the people he’d hired, preparing to add them to the long, long list of tradespeople he’s stiffed over the decades.
Then there was the speech itself, where Trump—when not playing his greatest hits of racism, xenophobia, whining about his various criminal and civil trials, and ad hominem attacks on political rivals—told a story about a shark. Referencing everything from M.I.T., to electric boat batteries, to a still-incomprehensible hypothetical about a fisherman with a government-mandated electric fishing boat having to choose between electrocution and reenacting Quint’s final scene in Jaws, one can only imagine the scattered Trump supporters questioning whether the heat was getting to them, too.
“On Sunday, Trump held his first large rally since his guilty verdict, where he laid out a detailed policy plan to tackle the nation’s challenges and I’m just kidding, he screamed about teleprompters, batteries and sharks.”
seth meyers
“I’m not saying Trump doesn’t care about his followers, but Trump is saying it. [Clip of Trump explicitly saying he only cares about his followers’ votes and not them, and then complaining that the media will claim he said it] Of course if you say a horrible thing, people are gonna say what you said is horrible. That’s how words work.”
stephen colbert
“Former President Trump told the crowd he was ‘sweating like a dog.’ And he was immediately shot by Kristi Noem.”
seth meyers
“Here’s the deal. if you’re willing to stand out in the desert listening to some maniac ramble until your skull bursts open like a bag of Jiffy Pop, you’re in a cult. Or you’re at Coachella. Either way get out of there and take off the stupid hat.”
stephen colbert
“It was so bad, Trump began exhibiting symptoms of heat stroke ten years ago.”
seth meyers
[After the clip of Trump’s long, long shark vs. electrocution digression] “Okay, Someone definitely has heat stroke. It might be me just for watching that. Do you smell toast?”
stephen colbert
[In response to Trump boasting that the boat captain in his anecdote said, “You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question”] “There’s a reason for that. Imagine if he said, ‘I mean, you know, I get this all the time.'”
seth meyers
“If he wins, his inaugural address is just gonna be a big game of Would You Rather. ‘My fellow Americans, to heal this divided nation I call on you to answer the crucial question of our time: Would you rather sleep on a bed of snakes or eat a bowl of doo-doo?'”
stephen colbert
“That sounds like a question for Math for Dummies by Dummies. ‘A boat sinks to the bottom of the ocean—big boat, strong boat—and there’s a tremendously powerful battery ten yards away from the shark. The shark is “woke” and hates America. The boat is sinking at a rate of three feet per second with a battery voltage of no greater than 12. At the current rate, will the shark eat you before you’re electrocuted, or will Crooked Joe rig the election. Wrong answers only.'”
seth meyers
[On attendee Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming “the man that I worship is also a convicted felon”] “You worship Steve Bannon?”
stephen colbert
“Oh, she means Jesus. Of course, they’re like the same guy. We all remember from Sunday school when Jesus said in the Gospels, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life and I’m sweating up here like a dog. But if I had to choose between sharks and electrocution, I go electrocution every time.'”
stephen colbert
Two-Tiered Frustration
Donald Trump is on probation. Now, listening to his supporters on Fox News and other right-wing propaganda outlets, one might come away with the idea that our justice system is broken, hijacked by Democrats including President Biden to persecute a poor innocent man who was unanimously convicted of 34 felonies in a trial where his lawyers had a full hand in jury selection and where Trump himself flouted an imposed gag order no less than [checks notes] infinity times. The Fox screaming heads were at it again on Monday as their chosen leader underwent exactly the same due process that every single other criminal defendant must go through when convicted.
Oh, wait, he didn’t. In keeping with America’s long history of treating rich, white convicted criminals with completely different rules than us peasants, Donald Trump was not required to be physically present at his probation hearing, instead Zooming in from his Florida golf club. Trump was also not required to submit to a drug test, despite that being a routine procedure for convicted felons.
While some noted that giving Trump the remote meeting treatment would benefit the New York probation officer, avoiding the public scrutiny and inevitable harassment other court officers in Trump’s orbit routinely get, the fact that that’s even a factor is a red flag in itself. Once more, reality would basically destroy Trump supporters’ complaints that their guy is not being treated fairly by the courts, if only they chose to live there.
“Let’s make something clear. If a probation officer is basing their sentencing guidelines on remorse, mental state and character, and the recommendation is a day less than one thousand years, Donald Trump is getting off easy.”
seth meyers
“‘Okay Mr. Trump, says you got fired from your last job for being terrible at it and for trying to [checks notes] kill a Mr. Mike Pence? But I see right here you’re currently applying for anew job which is [check notes again] the same job. Have you thought about learning to code?'”
stephen colbert
“Trump met with his probation officer over Zoom. Which was great because Trump’s lawyer could hit mute whenever he started talking.”
jimmy fallon
[On convicted felon trump being forbidden from associating with other convicted felons] “But that’s everyone he knows. Telling Donald Trump he can’t associate with anyone with a criminal record is like telling Andy Cohen he can only associate with fake housewives.”
seth meyers
“You know who this is really bad news for, his family. Now he’s gonna have to spend more time with them. Melania is so worried about this, she’s probably gonna knock over a liquor store in broad daylight just so she can have a rap sheet.”
seth meyers
“Things got off to a rough start when Trump offered the parole officer 130 thousand dollars.”
jimmy fallon
[After clip of Trump telling interviewer “Doctor” Phil McGraw, “Sometimes, revenge can be justified”] “Generally speaking, I don’t think probation officers respond well to the phrase, ‘Sometimes, revenge can be justified.’ I feel like, after you say that, the only correct response from a probation officer is, ‘I think I have what I need to make my recommendation: Lock up, throw away key.'”
seth meyers
[Note: Reports maintain that Trump was not required to take a drug test] “Unlike the vast majority of felons out there, Trump was allowed to do his interview at Mar-a-Lago over a video conference call. Must make the mandatory drug test kind of difficult. Gotta get the pee right into the USB port. Might want to use a dongle.”
stephen colbert
Happy Pandering Month
Jon Stewart, who recently hinted he might stick around at The Daily Show longer than we thought, had a stark message for both sides of the culture war pressuring corporations to take moral or political stands in his main desk piece on Monday. That message being that all the mounting pressures for companies to actually care is to ignore that, “This is only following in a long line of hollow corporate pandering meant to convince you that corporations are not only people, but good people, decent people who care about the systemic ills of this great nation.”
As ever, Stewart’s “only sane man in the world” stance is designed to piss off everybody. Even as the host passionately asserted his allyship with those fighting for civil rights and inclusion, he was unsparing in his assessment that asking corporations to actually give a sh*t is asking far too much in this good old capitalist system. And while this perhaps privileged opinion ignores the long and effective history of economic pressures undoing prejudicial laws and policies (the Montgomery Bus Boycott comes to mind), Stewart effectively made his case that looking to a fundamentally soulless business culture to stick to any principle but greed might be an exercise in futility.
As Stewart concluded, “Let’s stop pretending that a corporation can even be woke or unwoke or patriotic or unpatriotic. Let’s just let corporations live their truth as the profit-seeking Patrick Bateman psychopaths they are.”
“Pride Month is of course that time of year when corporations get together and financially exploit the decades-long struggle of gay people for acceptance and equality. ‘Hey, remember when you were fired from that bank job after you were outed? Well, Burger King does! With a burger that has two bottom buns! Yeah, thats not a funny make-em-up.”
jon stewart
[On a particular Pride Month Oreo commercial] “What the f*ck? Yeah, the next time you waste an enormous amount of paint to apologize to your daughter for making her and her girlfriend walk on f*ckin’ eggshells all f*ckin’ weekend, not even saying anything, just standing there with your glowering little beard face in the shadows, you paint the fence and give her an Oreo?”
jon stewart
“And then there’s Target. Pride Month means so much to them that they set up one small area in their 20,000 square feet of store to sell you a Pride t-shirt they had made in Indonesia for 29 cents landed, because they believe so much in the cause.”
jon stewart
[After recently fired conservative Candace Owens states that shopping at Target makes you “gay and a pervert”] “Even if I’m just getting paper towels?”
jon stewart
[On companies abandoning high-profile public stances on everything from Black Lives Matter to LGBTQ+ rights to bans on donations to GOP January 6 plotters within months] “Yeah, they ran the numbers and they found out they can sell more cellphones in a dictatorship.”
jon stewart
[On grocery chains asking you to round up your purchase at checkout to help hungry children] “The first thing I think is, ‘You’re the ones with all the f*ckin’ food!'”
jon stewart
Potpourri
[On one of his guests, Olympian sprinter Noah Lyles] “That’s right, Noah Lyles is the fastest man in the world. Stormy Daniels heard and was like, ‘Uh, beg to differ.'”
jimmy fallon
[On Wheel of Fortune‘s Pat Sajak retiring after 41 years] “And I just wanted to say to Pat Sajak, have you thought about just doing Mondays? Because you can just phone that sh*t in.”
jon stewart
“Martha’s Vineyard is close to running out of marijuana. So if want to know how worried Obama is about Biden winning the election, there’s your answer.”
jimmy fallon
[On the tiny crowds of pro-Trump protesters outside his trial] “Usually when there’s this much space in Manhattan, it means that someone took a dump on a subway car.”
seth meyers
“I hope you all had a great weekend. I did. I mean the weather here in New York is absolutely Donald Trump is a convicted felon.”
stephen colbert
[After watching “Doctor” Phil McGraw pitch softball questions to an unrepentant Trump on TV] “I’d say I can’t believe this guy’s a doctor, but the other guy was fully the President so what the hell, everybody gets to call themselves whatever they want from now on! Hey, everybody! Hello, hello, I’m Captain Seth Meyers of the USS F*ck This!”
seth meyers
[On Trump answering, “I think good,” to a question about how Melania is doing] “‘I think good?’ Thats not how you answer a question about how your wife is doing. That’s how you answer a question about how your great aunt Gloria is doing. ‘i think good. I mean, I think I would have seen something on Facebook if she died.'”
seth meyers
“Kia is recalling 463,000 SUVs because the front seats can catch on fire. Kia recalled the cars and then Kia owners were like, ‘Hey why don’t you come and get them?'”
jimmy fallon
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