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.
Build That… Line?
It’s hardly a secret that both of the candidates for the presidency are pretty old. Or that comedians love nothing more than taking whacks at the low-hanging fruit that are Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s various old guy gaffes as they square off to see whether American democracy was just a phase white people have finally gotten over. Still, it’s the 81-year-old Biden who generally gets tarred with the “too old to be President” brush, especially since 78-year-old Donald Trump never stops making his Democratic opponent’s age an issue at his campaign rallies, and conservative media keeps pushing deceptively and obviously edited Biden clips onto social media.
It’s sort of an odd strategy, since Trump (a whole three years younger than Biden) keeps blanking, glitching out, and going off on tangents about sharks and electric batteries that even his staunchest and most truth-averse supporters have trouble waving away. At this weekend’s Turning Point Action conference in Detroit, Trump made the seriously unforced error (or “tripping over his own d*ck,” as Jon Stewart put it) of once more touting the fact that he once passed a very basic test given to people possibly showing early signs of dementia, and challenging Biden to do the same. Unfortunately for Trump and those slavishly asserting that their would-be Republican strongman is actually a strong, mentally competent man, Trump repeatedly forgot the name of the White House doctor (and outed narcotics dispenser) Ronny Jackson, referring to his close personal pal as “Ronny Johnson.” It was just one of Trump’s many recent public missteps amidst increasing reports about the former President and twice-impeached insurrectionist’s acuity, such as when, at the same event, Trump roused himself from an excruciating mid-speech blank-out by suddenly pointing to a high-profile supporter in the crowd. Or, as Seth Meyers described the moment, “Nice save, dude. When in doubt, just scream the name ‘Mike Lindell’ like it’s your safe word in an orgy.”
“Trump bragged about passing one cognitive test while failing another.”
jimmy fallon
[Trump voice] “‘I love Ronnie Johnson! Doc Ronnie, Doc Ronnie Johnson. He gave me the test and then I went home to my beautiful wife Malaria. And my two hideous sons Urkel and Carls Jr.'”
stephen colbert
“Yeah, his name’s Ronny Jackson. It’s not Ronny Johnson, it’s Jackson. If that was another cognitive test, you failed it.”
jimmy kimmel
“Bragging about acing a cognitive test while forgetting the name of the doctor who gave it to you is like writing on a resume that you speak three languages and then misspelling the word languages.”
seth meyers
“Acing that cognitive test is a great point if only his doctor was actually named Ronny Johnson and not Ronny Jackson. He got the guy’s name wrong on his cognitive test. I don’t even know what to say.”
jon stewart
“The sad thing, under MAGA law his name is now Ronny Johnson.”
jon stewart
[After a clip of a Trump tangent sliding from Al Capone to several scenarios where Al Capone kills Trump supporter Mike Lindell] “I’m no psychologist, but does Donald Trump… want to murder Mike Lindell?”
stephen colbert
[After a GOP representative, following a Capitol Hill meeting with Trump, said Trump was “rambling” like a “drunk uncle”] “Bear in mind, the person saying that was a Republican congressman. So it’s really like your drunk uncle pulling you aside to warn you that there’s an even drunker uncle in the room.”
stephen colbert
[Following a similar meeting with CEOs, in which one participant claimed surprise that Trump was “meandering” and “doesn’t know what he’s talking about”] “You were surprised? So, do you not watch my show?”
stephen colbert
But Seriously, Build That Wall
John Stewart’s return to The Daily Show, part-time though it may be, has been a ratings and critical boom for the venerable late-night series. And while those suggesting Stewart, who famously retired from the show he helped make a fake news institution in 2015, has lost his fastball when it comes to dissecting world events have had a point or two along the way (you can still hear chairs creaking from his Late Show appearance which seemed to support some Covid conspiracy theories), there’s really no one who can do it better when the venerable anchor is truly on his game.
Attacking Fox News and other right-wing media for portraying the national violent crime rate as rising (it’s drastically falling) while mocking those politicians and commentators who decry “dystopian hellscapes” like New York, Stewart pulled off a segment-long piece of rhetorical razzle-dazzle just like the old days. Slyly adopting a Colbert Report-style antagonistic persona toward those Republicans stonewalling all attempts at passing gun control laws (thus flooding those Democratic-run cities with out-of-state guns), Stewart built to a satirical head, eventually turning the incendiary rhetoric of Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful right back into their faces. Replacing Trump’s xenophobic attacks on immigrants with the very real influx of GOP-unregulated weaponry actually murdering Americans on a daily basis all over the country, it was Stewart’s turn to solemnly state that the only solution to keep unregistered, illegally purchased, and insanely overpowered firearms from stealing their way into those blue cities is to keep those undesirables out with… well, just follow along.
[On conservative talking heads citing “feelings” to refute the FBI’s statistics on decreasing crime] “Yeah, as the right always famously says, ‘Feelings don’t care about your facts.’ ‘F**k your facts,’ isn’t that the slogan on the right?”
jon stewart
“But the point is, if you leave your house in New York, you will be shot dead. To all our audience members, I’m glad you chose to have your last moments with us.”
jon stewart
“Now all of this, by the way, is not to say that gun crime does not exist. Of course it does! And some cities are worse than others. But here’s the thing—and I say this with all due respect—the balls of these right wing motherf**kers, talking about how there’s too much gun crime and chaos in our Democratic cities when Republicans are the ones who’ve enabled the flood of illegal weapons into our cities in the first place.”
jon stewart
“Here’s something you wanna know. 93 percent of the illegal guns used in crimes in New York City aren’t from here. They, like theater majors, have come here to make a name for themselves.”
jon stewart
“The guns come from states like Georgia, and Florida, and South Carolina, where the gun laws are lax. And trust me, Florida is not sending us their best guns. They’re bringing guns for drugs, and crime, and rapists, and some I assume are good guns.”
jon stewart
And try as we might to put up some border controls to stem this invasion, this flood of literally undocumented weapons, Republicans fight every attempt to bring some type of order. And even paass laws to increase the chaos. [Stewart reads off GOP-led bans on everything from holding gun sellers and manufacturers responsible to terrorists and felons getting guns to allowing bump stocks.] Why would they do this? There must be a reason, right? The right tells us there’s no coincidences, right? Isn’t that what we’re told all the time? It’s almost as though Republicans must have a secret plan for this, funded by their billionaires. To flood our cities with illegal, undocumented guns. Pouring them over our state borders in the hopes of killing off reliable Democratic voters. The Great Displacement Theory, that’s obviously what’s happening, and no honest person would think otheriwise. So there’s only one real solution. Unfortunately for the borders of Gerogia, Florida, and South Carolina, we have to—what’s the word—[clip of Trump crowd chanting ‘Build That Wall!’]
jon stewart
Midwest Mean
Despite desperately walking his remarks back, Trump and his team have had to contend with the public relations fallout from Trump calling Republican National Convention-hosting Milwaukee a “horrible city.”
“This man is about to be in a world of deep-fried hurt.”
stephen colbert
“Just weeks before he heads to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, [Trump] called Milwaukee ‘a horrible city,’ forcing liberals around the country to defend Milwaukee, a city they then had to pretend that they’ve been to .”
jon stewart
“In 2020 the Democratic convention was there, I made a few innocent jokes about it, and four years later I’m still legally barred from buying bratwurst.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump claiming he only meant that the “crime” in Milwaukee was terrible] “Now, he does have a point. Milwaukee has become so soft on crime that this July their convention center is hosting a convicted felon.”
stephen colbert
“Yes, lots of crime in Milwaukee. Are you talking about now, sir, or when you and your felonious friends come to town?”
jon stewart
Happy Father’s Day—No, Not You
Sunday was Father’s Day, a time to celebrate dads and paternal figures everywhere and, if you’re Donald Trump Jr, accidentally blurt out an easily proven falsehood that your own pop was not a regular flier on infamous sex trafficking pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane. Don Jr’s Turning Point boast was quickly and devastatingly debunked by Twitter’s community notes, which responded, with receipts, that Donald Trump appears on Epstein’s flight logs no less than seven times. Everyone else not accidentally thrown under the bus by their eldest son just had a nice Father’s Day.
“Imagine how hard it would be to find out that your dad was on Epstein’s light logs—and on Father’s Day, no less! What do you even write on the card after that? ‘To the best dad who hasn’t been on Epstein’s plane eight or more times! Love, Don Jr.'”
seth meyers
“‘I’m not on the Epstein list’ is one of those things that, if you have to say it, you’ve already lost. For example, even if it’s true, you wouldn’t put it on a dating profile between ‘outdoorsy’ and ‘loves dogs.'”
seth meyers
“Seven times! He wasn’t just on Epstein’s plane, he had Platinum Status. They let him board before uniformed military personnel. He was only three flights away from filling out his punch card.”
seth meyers
[On the Fox interview where Trump was asked about declassifying all the Epstein files] “He short circuits when they ask him about Epstein like he’s Sylvester the cat and someone just asked him, ‘Have you seen Tweety Bird?'”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s all-caps social media Father’s Day rant] “I guess you’d be mad on Father’s Day if there was a a whole day dedicated to your biggest failures.”
jimmy kimmel
“I hope everybody had a nice Father’s Day. I had brunch with my kids and then I went home and grilled a hammock with my new beard trimmer.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“Hey, I heard about an 81-year-old woman in Boston who was just named the world’s oldest train driver. When he heard, Biden was like, ‘I have never been more turned on.'”
jimmy fallon
“23 pairs of twins recently graduated from the same middle school in Massachusetts. The graduation was held, I’m guessing, in the shadow of a nearby cooing tower.”
seth meyers
[After a montage of Donald Trump’s signature “bing, bang, bong” gun imitations] “I would pay good money to hear Trump describe the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.”
jon stewart
[On the Dallas Mavericks being down 3-0 in the NBA Finals this weekend] “It was such a disaster in the making Ted Cruz had already booked a flight to get away.”
jimmy kimmel
[After calling Republican fawning over Trump “weird”] “And by the way, I don’t mean to denigrate all types of weird. Artistic weird, for example, is great. Uncle weird, on the other hand, is not. Artistic weird is when you paint yourself blue and play the drums. Uncle weird is when you start carrying around loose Ivermectin in your Members Only jacket and tell everyone at Thanksgiving about the testicle tanner you bought because you saw it on Tucker Carlson’s web show.”
seth meyers
[On Trump bragging that he already has more than enough votes] “You heard him Trump folks, he doesn’t need your vote. You know what, on November 5, take a you day, MAGA-style. Go get your gun a mani-pedi. Maybe a couples’ massage with your truck. Yell at your kids’ teacher about how the Very Hungry Caterpillar transitions into a butterfly. Have fun!”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s mostly white crowd celebrating his outreach to Detroit’s Black voters] “All 15 Black Americans who support Trump were there to see Matin Luther Burger King in person.”
jimmy kimmel
[On this week’s coming “heat dome” hitting the Northeast] “It is brutal out there. People are sweating like Mike Pence watching the Tony Awards.”
jimmy fallon
[Responding to Don Jr accusing the FBI of putting all conservatives on “a list”] “You’re not on an FBI list. These guys are so desperate to pretend they’re anti-government rebels with transgressive views rather than the rich, powerful a**holes they are. Besides, the FBI doesn’t need to put Don Jr on a list. I’m pretty sure they know where to find him. Just check all stores that sell Adderall-infused beard oil.”
seth meyers
[On Wells Fargo firing employees for “simulation of keyboard activity”] “They were making it look like they were working without actually working. Or, as most people call that, working.”
jimmy fallon
“Tesla has reportedly paused Cybertruck deliveries due to an issue with their windshield wipers. Apparently, when you turn them on you can see all the people laughing at you.”
seth meyers
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