Mon Night Monologues: Trump’s Trail of Fears

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.

Donnie’s Weekend of Horrors

There was only a skeleton crew of late-night hosts on duty on Monday. Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers have the week off to presumably lie in a dark room with a wet cloth over their eyes before tackling the final weeks of this beyond-exhausting presidential race, while Jon Stewart seemingly finds his one-day-a-week Daily Show gig too taxing to do every week. (Ah, but we kid.)

Still, it’s not like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel didn’t come stocked with jokes about a truly monologue-worthy weekend of Donald Trump’s adventures on the Old West campaign trail. That’s where Trump stranded his supporters in the dark of the desert after a rally at a Coachella-adjacent manure farm. Kamala Harris released her perfectly normal medical report while Donald Trump—abnormally for any presidential candidate over the last hundred years—did not. Trump tried to pronounce the word “Assyrians” while continuing to make racist attacks on Venezuelans. And cleanup efforts after two truly devastating storms in the American Southeast were hampered when some gun-toting yahoos, whipped into a murderous idiot frenzy by Donald Trump hurt their own communities by threatening to shoot FEMA workers for… well, you’d have to speak fluent dumbass conspiracy theory to understand.

Sundown in Trump Town

After a campaign season where a mediocre debate performance saw literally every mainstream news outlet run daily stories about President Joe Biden’s supposedly declining faculties (all while the economy was good, crime was down, major strikes were negotiated away, and America was generally not subsumed by Trump-ian chaos), the obvious mental decline of one Donald Trump has had the press tucking their tails and apparently deciding that reporting on such things is unseemly. At various rallies this weekend, Trump exhibited signs of, let’s call it iffy behavior that was alarming, even for the guy who routinely rants about sharks, windmills, and Hannibal Lecter.

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“As of tomorrow, we are three weeks from Election Day. We are in the ‘somebody please put Trump in a home’ stretch of this thing.”

jimmy kimmel

[After spotting supporters sporting “Assyrians for Trump” t-shirts in his crowd, Donald Trump attempted to pronounce “Assyrians,” only for it to come out something like “Ass-your-Asians”] “Okay, shanked that one. But you know what, they should have given him a simpler ethnicity to pronounce. Like was anyone in the crowd from Grocery? Can anybody speak Stomach?”

stephen colbert

“Tannibal Lecter is getting more erratic every day.” 

jimmy kimmel

[On an untouched-up photo of Trump where his usual face makeup looks as if Mrs. Doubtfire stuck her face into a pumpkin pie] “I gotta admit, he does keep a strong border.”

stephen colbert

“If you saw a makeup job that bad in a casket, you wouldn’t pay the funeral parlor. ‘Uhh, tell you what, actually just close the lid. And, uh, let’s bump this one up to cremation.'”

stephen colbert

[After Trump, attempting to lay out his economic plan(?) went off on a rant about groceries, concluding, ‘The stomach is speaking… it always does”] “It does. It’s true, it’s true. The stomach is speaking. The colon is weeping. and my rectum is whistling, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.'”

stephen colbert

[On Trump claiming he’s going to “defleet inflation”] “It’s true, we’re going to defleet, deflate, defoot, Dafoe, Willem, dijon, delivery and, frankly not delivery, DiGiorno.”

stephen colbert

[On Trump going off on an insulting tangent about the city of Detroit… while speaking in Detroit] “It’s a pretty weird strategy to dunk on your host city. ‘Hello Cleveland! Our next song is called “I’d Rather Get an Un-Anesthetized Vasectomy Than Live in Cleveland!’ One, two, three, four—’Slicing up my dong in Cleveland…'”

stephen colbert

Paging Dr. Nick

The spectacle of what Colbert calls Trump’s brain dying a very public death makes it sort of suspect that Trump refuses to release any report on his fitness to serve four more years in the most stressful and challenging job in the world. Naturally, his supporters, who rush to buy scammy NFTs of a superhero Trump rippling with abs, wave that away with the slavish obedience of all true idolators. But still, Trump can’t even come up with a single quack to sign off on even a fake bill of health dictated by Trump himself? Sounds fishy to Kamala Harris, who asked at one of her rallies this weekend whether Trump is “afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America.” “Yeah, probably,” noted Stephen Colbert simply in response.

“Or, hear me out—it is possible they just can’t find a doctor willing to do the exam. ‘Okay, Mr. Trump, if you will just open the gown… Close it up, close it up, close it up! He’s fine, what do I sign? Get him out of here!'”

stephen colbert

“Trump has not released his medical report. He’s not released his medical report, he’s not released his tax returns, his health care plan, he hasn’t released his sports bra in months…”

jimmy kimmel

[On Harris’ medical report, where the White House doctor referred to her health as “excellent”] “It’s great that just the phrase ‘excellent health’ kind of feels like a dig at Donald Trump. They should follow that up with ‘can walk up stairs,’ and ‘is potty trained.'”

stephen colbert

“According to the White House doctor, the Vice President is in excellent health other than for season allergies, mild nearsightedness, and hives. I wonder what could be giving her hives?”

jimmy kimmel

“That’s a hell of a doctor’s note. After my last physical, Dr. Shaker just wrote, ‘Stephen can continue to host The Late Show (Maybe sit down for monologue?)'”

stephen colbert

“According to her doctor, Harris works out daily and eats healthy. Okay, but politicians are supposed to be relatable to Americans. We do not eat healthy. Has she forgotten the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence? ‘Love that chicken from Popeyes!'”

stephen colbert

[On Trump’s continued attacks on his opponent’s intelligence] “The guy who’s up in the middle of the night reading tweets about himself wants to give someone else a cognitive test. Pretty sure we all watched her ace that test when she handed you your tangerine ass in the debate.”

jimmy kimmel

[On the “in any sane world would be disqualifying” report of Trump calling Kamala Harris “retarded” while he complained his rich donors weren’t donating enough to his campaign] “Man, when they go low, they go real—Trump’s like a mole person tunneling his way to China. And when he gets there he’s gonna visit the place where they print his God Bless the USA Trump Bibles.”

jimmy kimmel

That’s a Good Boy

“And this next clip seems out of context,” Stephen Colbert warned his audience about a Trump clip from his Reno rally, “But let me assure you—there is no context.”

[Printed verbatim—also, picture Trump sounding very pleased with himself] “And I did three of them today. I did a little one, a tiny one with a small group, and than I did a really big one. I did a big one. And I did this one. And I’m still raring to go.”

Cue Stephen Colbert having fun with a running gag.

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“But let’s watch it again and just for fun let’s imagine he’s talking about poop.”

stephen colbert

“And I did three of them today. I did a little one, a little tiny one with a small group, and than I did a really big one. I did a big one. And I did this one. And I’m still raring to go.”

“This time, let’s imagine he’s talking about snorting lines of crushed-up Adderall.”

stephen colbert

“And I did three of them today. I did a little one, a tiny one with a small group, and than I did a really big one. I did a big one. And I did this one. And I’m still raring to go.”

“This time let’s imagine he’s talking about porn stars he cheated on Melania with.”

stephen colbert

“And I did three of them today. I did a little one, a tiny one with a small group, and than I did a really big one. I did a big one. And I did this one. And I’m still raring to go.”

Hiking the Old Hitler Trail

Godwin’s Law, as coined by author Mike Godwin a while back says that calling someone a Nazi in an argument is a sure sign the accuser is losing that argument. Intended to mock the hyperbolic nature of online debate, the saying has been co-opted so often by MAGA trolls that Godwin himself felt the need to clarify that, if the person you’e arguing with is actually a Nazi, it’s totally appropriate to call them a Nazi. Now on to Donald Trump’s recent campaign rallies out west.

That’s where the Republican candidate for president of the United States played to his white supremacist base as he demonized immigrants from majority non-white countries, calling them rapists, murders, vermin, and accusing them of having “bad genes.” Where Trump threatened to use the military to attack and imprison any American citizens who oppose him. Where Trump routinely praises global dictators and racist authoritarians like his benefactor Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. And where a Trump 2024 banners at his rallies are routinely displayed alongside literal swastikas. (Probably just a coincidence.)

Trump’s own former Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley called Trump “fascist to the core,” and, with Trump ramping up his hateful, racist, and dangerous rhetoric to unprecedented (even for him) levels in his sweaty push for the campaign finish line, at least a few news outlets (and most late-night hosts) are finally willing to make the historical connection out loud.

[After Trump went to Aurora, Colorado to continue his lie that Venezuelan immigrant gangs have taken over the city—racist nonsense even the Republican mayor of that city called him out for] “He wants us to shudder in terror anytime we see anyone who looks even slightly different. Donald Trump’s newest vision of MAGA is to make America Germany in the 1930’s again.”

jimmy kimmel

[On Trump threatening to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to imprison immigrants, something first used against the French] “That would really change Trump’s stump speech. ‘They’re eating the snails! No it’s true, they’re eatin’ the frogs. You walk into their mansion and their talking candlestick says ‘Be our guest,’ but then he’s making love to the feather-duster.'”

stephen colbert

[After Trump called immigrants rapists] “And that’s a man who knows rapists, I’ll tell you that.”

jimmy kimmel

“Just a former president suggesting he’d use the military against his fellow citizens for exercising their freedom of speech. Nothing to worry about, folks. Seriously, when is he gonna grow that little mustache already? Because, there’s only three weeks left, you’ve gotta get started.”

jimmy kimmel

Potpourri

[On sinking GOP senate candidate Kari Lake repeatedly referring to the under-GOP-assault medical procedure IVF as “UVF” in her disastrous debate performance against Democrat Reuben Gallego] “Yeah, UVF. That’s when the sun shines on the uterus.” 

jimmy kimmel

“It’s October 14, meaning the general election is 21 days from now. You can read all about it in my new book, How to gain 100 Pounds in 21 Days.'”

stephen colbert

[On a clip of Trump exclaiming “I love Black men!” after seeing a poll suggesting rising support among Black males] “‘As long as they don’t try to live in one of my buildings!'”

jimmy kimmel

[After Trump’s campaign (having stiffed the shuttle bus company) left hundreds of rally-goers stranded in the middle of the night] “Could there be a more perfect metaphor for what four more years of Donald Trump would be like than him stranding his own supporters in the desert?” 

jimmy kimmel

“Nobody knows why he’s campaigning in Southern California, where he’s about as popular as deep vein thrombosis.”

jimmy kimmel

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