Seth Meyers used Monday night’s A Closer Look to address Donald Trump’s latest weekend broadside—a new Truth Social post calling the Late Night host “talentless,” accusing him of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and urging NBC to fire him.
Meyers opened with mock gratitude, calling Trump’s outburst “a thoughtful piece of fan mail.” He then rolled a clip in which a Newsmax anchor read Trump’s message aloud.
“You guys! They said my name on TV,” Meyers exclaimed. “It’s not often you hear the name Seth Meyers on TV before midnight.”
The host went on to place himself in what he called Trump’s weekend “sh*t list,” noting he was attacked alongside an eclectic roster that included Christopher Wray, Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Indiana Republicans, and former President Joe Biden. The only person Trump seemed happy with, he added, was Sean Connery, after Trump resurfaced a 2008 article in which the late actor praised one of his golf courses.
“It’s a bad sign,” Meyers cracked, “when the most positive thing someone said about you this weekend was from an article 17 years old by a man who died five years ago.”
Though he emphasized he had no issue with Trump criticizing the show, adding that “on a lot of nights, he’s got a point”—Meyers zeroed in on one line from Trump’s post: “He was viewed last night in an uncontrollable rage.” The phrasing, he said, sounded less like a presidential statement and more like something a Victorian dowager might whisper in a murder mystery.
Meyers also questioned what, exactly, provoked Trump this time.
The president, who posted his message on Saturday afternoon, claimed to have watched Meyers “last night,” but NBC aired a repeat on Friday—specifically (according to Meyers), the same episode that angered Trump two weeks ago, in which he discussed the president’s fixation on electric aircraft-carrier catapults. “So it was the catapults again,” Meyers concluded. “With respect, Mr. President, you can’t get mad a second time for the same thing when it’s in a repeat.”
Trump’s feud with Meyers stretches back to the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where both Meyers and then-President Obama roasted the future president. Cameras caught Trump sitting stone-faced during the jokes—a moment that some observers believe fueled his eventual run for the presidency.
Watch Meyers’ response to Trump’s latest attack at the top of this post.
