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.
Debate 2: Cramming Speed
Tomorrow night marks the first and perhaps only presidential debate between Donald Trump and late entrant, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the world is on edge. After all, it’s only the literal fate of American democracy hanging in the balance of whether or note those inexplicably undecided voters and easily distracted pundits will be swayed on the fate of our nation by a single, thoroughly rehearsed event where two people talk past each other with pre-planned zingers and canned sound bites.
But we kid, as this debate truly marks a contrast in styles. On one hand, Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor with a knack for shutting down lies and nonsense and a headful of carefully articulated policy ideas. Then there’s Donald Trump, the mail-order steak grifter and guy who managed to bankrupt several casinos, whose rhetorical flourishes routinely include references to fictional serial killers as if they’re old pals, rambling anecdotes about crowd size, windmills causing high bacon prices, and batsh*t crazy lies concerning everything from nonconsensual public school sex changes to that time he totally was at Ground Zero hauling rubble with first responders. With Harris reportedly going so far as to have her debate sparring partners dress up in Trump drag while she assiduously prepares for the big night in Philadelphia, reports say that Trump is, naturally, giving all that nerd stuff a miss, with aides desperately attempting to pull their candidate’s focus from his failing social media empire with quick-hit, short attention span mini-preps they’ve termed “policy time.”
As Stephen Colbert imagined how that’s going: “He is a 78 year old toddler. ‘Don’t worry Donald, it’s not a debate, it’s policy time. Do you ned to go policy? You don’t? I tell you what, why don’t we all just go policy, just to try, before we head over to the debate.'”
“Oh, they’re giving him policy time. Such an important part of childhood development. ‘You can do it, Donald. Two more minutes of policy time and then you can watch three Paw Patrols.'”
Jordan klepper
“Then after policy time, it’s tummy time and then a nap.”
jimmy fallon
[On reports that aides are talking policy back and forth in Trump’s distracted proximity in the hopes some of it sinks in] “So he’s not prepping, other people are prepping near him. They’re hoping he gets a contact prep.”
stephen colbert
“It’s a strategy known as, ‘trying to get your teenage boy to wear deodorant.’ ‘Hey honey, do you smell something weird?’ ‘Oh yeah, I wonder what that is.’ ‘You know, I hear Jack Harlow wears something called Old Spice, he’s pretty cool.'”
stephen colbert
“The candidates will field questions about all the big issues: the economy, inflation, sharks, electrocution—everything we care about.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Hillary Clinton’s advice that Harris should “bait” Trump in the debate] “Oh, good idea. You know what she should do? Show up as a Black woman.”
seth meyers
“How can you possibly prepare to debate Donald Trump? This is a man who, if he doesn’t like the direction a hurricane is going, just draws a new hurricane on the map. You can’t debate that. It’s like if they tried to fly Bruce Willis up to the asteroid to reason with it instead of blow it up.”
jimmy Kimmel
“The goal for Harris is to connect with the thin slice of undecided voters.Yes, once again a presidential election will come down to undecided voters. You know their slogan: We can’t pick a slogan.”
stephen colbert
“Tomorrow is the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump. Today President Biden called Harris to offer his support and he was very reassuring. Biden told her, ‘Listen, the worst that can happen is that all the Democrats unite and kick you off the ticket.'”
jimmy fallon
“Also, unlike Joe Biden, she’s decided not to spend large portions of the debate staring hauntingly into space like an ancient dog seeing a ghost in the corner of the room that no one else can see.”
stephen colbert
“Actually, the White House said that Biden is looking forward to watching the debate. Which is exactly what he did last time.”
jimmy fallon
[On the one-two ABC punch of Monday Night Football and the debate in the same week] “This is a rare week when our network has—what did we used to call that? Viewers.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump refusing to practice with a podium] “Well of course not, he prefers the late, great Hannibal Lectern.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump saying that the 5’4″ Harris utilizing a standing box would be “cheating”] “That’s right, cheating is only allowed when it comes to wives, taxes, and every round of golf he has ever played.”
jimmy kimmel
[On a new New York Times poll] “Kamala is down a point? Seriously? She’s sane, never tried to overthrow the government, not 600 years old with a rap sheet. I mean what else does Kamala have to do, two interviews? I mean, c’mon, be reasonable, people.”
jordan klepper
Sanewashing That Crazy Stink
“Sanewashing”: a neologism coined to explain how mainstream media continually fails democracy and their profession by refusing to acknowledge that a major party presidential candidate is, to use a colloquialism, “koo-koo in the brain-box.” As Seth Meyers expressed on Monday’s A Closer Look segment, it’s clear that the emergence of Donald Trump and his sundowning, logic-flouting idiocy has caught reporters and pundits unprepared. Or it’s exposed them as willing shills for conservatives, cowards unwilling to confront a bullying would-be dictator, and/or curmudgeonly pedants sticking to both-sides-ing America into literal authoritarian white supremacist rule.
On the eve of a debate where he fears the media’s double standard will be ion full display, Meyers summed up the press’ ongoing habit of summing up Trump’s latest hateful, incoherent nonsense (specifically, his jaw-droppingly bananas non-answer on healthcare to an economic conference) as if it’s the same-old same-old politics as usual, stating, “But, in spite of what you just saw, most of the mainstream media chooses to inhabit an alternate universe where Trump is a normal candidate with a normal brain saying normal words.” As did John Oliver on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Meyers then played the entire, eternal two minutes of Trump’s answer, lest he be accused of taking Trump’s babbling, dazed, and alarmingly unhinged words out of whatever context conservatives imagine would make them okay. (He did include an intermission, as a public service.)
“This is how low the bar is for Trump. He could streak naked across the stage covered in baby oil screaming “Bababooey, then trip and fall head first into a garbage can, stand up, run into a wall, fart, and pass out, and as long as he says Make America Great Again when he comes to, they’ll all clap and say, ‘Wow, you know what, this is a new Trump.'”
seth meyers
“What numbers? You keep saying the word numbers like you’re an undercover cop and it’s your safe word. ‘How ‘bout those numbers? You run the numbers? We love numbers, numbers, numbers, they’re on to me, get me out of here!'”
seth meyers
“Also, it’s very funny to give that kind of rambling, incoherent answer and then finish with, ‘Very good question.’ ‘That was a very good question, and you could tell because it really, it threw me for a f**king loop, didn’t it? I mean, what did I even say, you guys? I was waiting for one of you to cut me off and then I remembered it wasn’t a debate and I was like, ‘Uh oh, buckle up everybody.’ I mean, what a good question. And you all just had to sit here for it the whole time. You know, I shouldn’t say this, but at one point I blacked out. And when I came to, I opened my eyes—true story—and I was floating over the stage. And I could see—I looked down, I could see myself still answering the question, and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t be dead because I’m down there,’ but like, what in the world is going on right now. Ser[iously]—good question.'”
seth meyers
[On Fox News pundits vainly attempting to say Trump’s appearance went great] “What impressed you more, how many times he said the word ‘numbers’ without giving an actual number, or the sentence, ‘Childcare is childcare?’ Seriously, what were you guys watching? The words that came out of his mouth did not form any discernible human sentence structure. You get a more coherent answer from Siri after you put your phone in a blender.”
seth meyers
Late Night and Hard Time
Supporters of Donald Trump routinely claim that critics of the former President, current felon, and twice-impeached traitor are making too much of Trump’s aspirations to dictatorship. “After all,” they might complain, “Trump merely proclaimed he’d be a dictator on day one of a second term, praises and cozies up to literally every authoritarian dictator on the planet, told evangelicals that they would never have to vote again if they elected him just one more time, is currently proposing a bloody purge of millions of non-white people in literal concentration camps, pitches his every speech to the squirmiest white nationalist bigots he can find (like us!), and celebrated his hand-packed Supreme Court ruling that he cannot be held legally accountable for anything whatsoever. MAGA!!”
Well, the Trump faithful have another square in their sycophantic bootlicker bingo card filled this week, as the former reality show host and legally determined rapist has once again floated the idea of imprisoning his critics, singling out especially those late-night comics who nightly tell ego-puncturing jokes about Donald Trump’s weird, tiny penis. (Allegedly.) In a genuinely terrifying Rolling Stone article this week, Trump’s plans should he win the 2024 election (or stage another, more successful coup when he loses) include jailing the likes of everyone at Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, and Stephen Colbert, all of whom he mentioned by name. (Don’t worry, Seth Meyers and the rotating hosts at The Daily Show, he probably just forgot. Jimmy Fallon—you’ll be fine.) After gleefully noting his inclusion on a real-life Nixonian enemies list, a quick cut saw Stephen Colbert donning Groucho glasses and asking, ” Did you hear that? Incredible, Wonder who he’s talking about?”
“Yes! Thank you. Finally I made an enemies list. I mean, obviously theres no guarantee I’ll be arrested, but it’s an honor just to be nominated.”
stephen colbert
“No doubt it will all be decided this weekend in Los Angeles. Whoever wins the Emmy for Best Talk Show will be sent to a camp. ‘And the gulag goes to…'”
stephen colbert
“So for my old colleague Jon Stewart, I just wanted you to know I voted for you.”
Stephen colbert
“How would this work for Jon Stewart? Would he only go to jail on Mondays? There’s a lot to figure out.”
jimmy kimmel
“Of course, if Jon wins he’s only incarcerated on Mondays, so…”
stephen colbert
[On Trump moving on from jailing comedians to jailing election workers and voters, citing nonexistent voter fraud expert Tucker Carlson] “But that Tucker Carlson? The one who flew all the way to Russia to sniff bread, got fired from Fox News for being too racist, and famously said he wanted to f**k a piece of candy? Sounds solid to me.”
seth meyers
“Also, to be clear, Tucker did not say explicitly he wanted to have sex with a piece of candy. He just lamented that candy carton characters weren’t allowed to be hot and wear stilettos any more. Which sounds to me like he wanted to f**k a piece of candy. It’s just a weird thing to have an opinion on.”
seth meyers
Talk About First Period
So Donald Trump is truly testing the limits of his powers as cult leader. Seriously, we all thought Trump was being hyperbolic when he claimed he wouldn’t lose a single MAGA voter if he shot someone in public, but his routine murders of truth, decency, and common sense prove that his nodding-along minions will swallow the Kool-Aid flavored bullcrap no matter what their Glorious Leader says, so long as it reinforces their entrenched prejudices.
This time, Trump used a campaign stop to claim—in all seriousness and with no quarter given to even the merest modicum of human logic—that [sighs resignedly] public schools, with Kamala Harris’ devious approval, are whisking away unsuspecting children from their parents, only to return them after performing secret gender-reassignment surgery. This is the sort of bigot-baiting lunacy that you’d expect from a guy sitting in his own urine on public transport, but, nope, it’s the person chosen by the Republican Party as their presidential nominee. For the third time. Drink up, MAGA—you never know what Trump’s going to ask you to swallow next.
[On Trump rhetorically asking of his fictional hate-fable, “Can you believe it?”] “No. No, no I can’t imagine this because it’s an insane thing you just made up. Do you really think a kid goes to school one day and comes back with a full sex change operation? That’s ridiculous. Americans getting free health care? Not happening!”
jordan klepper
[On the shocked parents in his made-up scenario] “‘And say, ‘Jimmy what happened ?,’ and Jimmy says, ‘Mama, I’m so scared. The principal got on the P.A. and said, ‘Report to the cafeteria for a sex change and salisbury steak.’ Let me ask you, as a parent, can you imagine that? Well you have to because I’m making all this sh*t up.'”
stephen colbert
“Apart from everything else, one time in middle school I told the nurse I had a stomach ache and she put a Band-Aid on my stomach. I have a hard time believing they’re doing full-scale operations.”
jordan klepper
Trump Loses Dick
You know the surging Kamala Harris has a big tent when it admits an infamous Republican puppet master and former Vice President to the anti-Trump party. That’s what happened this weekend when Dick Cheney, the architect of a few of George W. Bush’s illegal wars, announced that he ‘s voting for Harris, calling Trump a “threat to democracy” while bringing up the specter of that time Trump led a violent coup attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election. It’s a case of a genuinely evil guy saying, “Look, I might suck, but that guy is a dangerous lunatic,” and the cognitive dissonance of someone so thoroughly and justifiably reviled by people with human souls doing the right thing is enough to throw some Democrats for a real—if warily grateful—loop.
Not so late-night hosts, with The Daily Show‘s Jordan Klepper noting, “See, Kamala has something for everyone. Whether you’re a trans person of color, or a white construction worker in the heartland, or an unrepentant war criminal who needs the blood of Iraqi children to power the machine that keeps him alive and out of the flames of hell for one more day.”
“Well I’ll be. When I heard that news you could have knocked me over with a shotgun to the face.”
stephen colbert
“We’ve got so much to talk about tonight. Kamala and Trump prepare for tomorrow night’s debate, we hunt down the person who’s sending you all those campaign emails, and Dick Cheney is once again taking shots at his Republican friends.”
jordan klepper
“It was a nice for Cheney to have a change of heart that wasn’t an actual change of heart.”
jimmy fallon
“And by the way, I apologize to those of you who saw Dick Cheney’s name trending on Twitter over the weekend and were like, ‘Oh my God, this is it!'”
jordan klepper
[On Cheney attacking Trump by saying, “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him”] “Stirring words. Not to be outdone, George W. Bush released his own statement, a watercolor of a Pomeranian juggling peaches.”
stephen colbert
[On Fox News propaganda maven Rupert Murdoch’s son James also endorsing Harris] “How dare you James! How can you do this to your father just a few months after he was happily at his fifth wedding. ‘James, how could you do this to me? How am I supposed to explain this to fifth mommy. Ahh, I’m bored with this one, get me another.'”
stephen colbert
“Donald Trump has secured the endorsement of RFK Jr,. Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk, three people who will help Trump reach voters who aren’t undecided—about what shape the earth is.”
jordan klepper
Network Synergy, One-Liners, and You
Jimmy Fallon interrupted his monologue to hand over the jokes to Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost for a few minutes to catch up with the summer’s news. And, sure, it’s a way to plug SNL‘s upcoming 50th season, and to perform similar service for the duo’s Peacock-hosted live comedy show. But… well, it was both of those things.
[On Louisiana forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom] “Wow, every public school classroom. My only question is, what’s public school?”
Colin Jost
[On Trump picking J.D. Vance as his running mate] “Well, I guess he can’t dodge every bullet.”
michael che
[On a report listing Minneapolis, Orlando, and Cincinnati as the best places to retire] “Yes, while the worst city to retire to is once again Elder Abuse, New Mexico.”
colin jost
[On Kendrick Lamar’s Juneteenth party] “Which is weird because I heard that it was Drake who likes the teenths.”
michael che
[On an Indiana court ruling that a taco is a sandwich] “A taco is a sandwich? That’s it, build the wall!”
colin jost
Potpourri
“Red Lobster is exiting bankruptcy and will operate their restaurants. I don’t want to say how they’re saving money, but it’s not good that the lobster is now in quotations.”
jimmy fallon
[On several NFL players opting to wear cushioning pads over their helmets on Sunday] “You know a sport is too dangerous when even the helmets need helmets.”
jimmy kimmel
“According to a new report, Elon Musk in on pace to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027. People are worried that once he becomes a trillionaire, he might get weird.”
jimmy fallon
“The Taliban recently released a new 114-page manifesto restricting women’s rights. They’re calling it Project 1025.”
seth meyers
[On photos of GOP Veep candidate swimming with his shirt on, surrounded by the Secret Service] “I’m starting to feel bad for this guy. I mean, this time around Trump may hang his V.P. out of mercy.”
jordan klepper
“Although if you ask me, this may be the most relatable thing J.D. Vance has ever done. Don’t worry, J.D., I’m with you. And so are millions of other men with pepperoni nipples.”
jordan klepper
[On Trump’s huge fundraising deficit compared to Harris] “‘I am pleased to announce an incredible new edition of the beautiful Trump Bible for just… 110 million dollars.'”
stephen colbert
“‘That includes, folks, that includes a signed and numbered photograph of me coveting my neighbor’s wife. This new edition is not endorsed by Lee Greenwood, but it is endorsed by me peenwood.'”
stephen colbert
“Former President Trump held a rally on Saturday and said he would eliminate the Education Department. It’s part of his new Every Child Left Behind program.”
seth meyers
[On Guy Fieri claiming he was mistaken for a bartender at a party at Sylvester Stallone’s house] “A bartender? Madame may I remind you, this isn’t just any municipal worker of Flavortown, you’re talkin’ to the damn mayor.”
stephen colbert
“Cantaloupes sold in multiple states have been recalled thanks to possible salmonella contamination. The CDC said, ‘You know that part of the fruit salad you always throw away? Keep doing that.'”
jimmy fallon
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