Missed Thursday’s late-night monologues? We’ve got you covered with our round-up of the night’s best laughs from across the dial.
“Person” Is a Relative Term
Time magazine has chosen its Person of the Year cover. And since that publication very clearly states that its made up honor is given to the individual who “for better or for worse … has done the most to influence the events of the year,” one might think that any cover-boy or girl would take their selection as an opportunity to contemplate their words and deeds to see if their influence has been a net positive or negative for the world.
Or you could just be Donald Trump and grin like a happy monkey while ringing a bid ol’ rich guy bell on Wall Street. Yes, Donald Trump is Time‘s 2024 Person of the Year, an honor so esteemed and respected that it ‘s been bestowed on Adolph Hitler, Richard Nixon, Joseph Stalin, and the Ayatollah Khomeini. As Michael Kosta noted in summing up the clip of Time‘s editor announcing Trump’s selection live on the Today show, “‘I’m super excited to be here. Please don’t be mad when it’s the person we had to pick.'”
“Let’s begin with Time magazine. Every year they reveal their Person of the Year so that people can remember that Time magazine still exists.”
michael kosta
“It is a decision that always sends shockwaves through my dentist’s waiting room in 2003.”
stephen colbert
“Sadly there’s no one left to roll it up and spank him with it.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump is the first man ever to be Time’s Person of the Year and McDonald’s Employee of the Month.”
jimmy fallon
“My only issue is this glamour shot of Trump in a pose I’ve literally never seen him take before. I mean I’ve only ever seen him screaming or slumped over so apologies if I’m not buying Donnie Contemplation over here.”
seth meyers
[On Time editor Sam Jacobs’ utterly miserable demeanor while making the announcement] “That’s the most unenthusiastic reveal I’ve ever seen. That’s how I act when my sister gives me scented lotion for Christmas. ‘Okay, there it is. Pomegranate Dream, thank you.'”
michael kosta
“Trump said the honor feels just as exciting as the birth of his child except he was present at the award.”
jimmy fallon
“It was a no-brainer in every sense of the word.”
jimmy kimmel
[On the finalists] “And why did they put Kamala Harris on the list? I know they’re trying to pay her some respect but all they did was make her lose to Donald Trump again.”
michael kosta
Ding-Dong, You Ding-Dongs
Speaking of Trump’s smirking Wall Street ding-along on Thursday, the sight of their champion of the working (white) man hobnobbing with the richest people on the planet on the same day he admits in Time that all of his iron-clad guarantees that he would lower grocery prices were complete and utter horse-crap should ring a few wake-up bells for Trump voters.
Late-night hosts were pretty unanimous in their assessment that that won’t be the case, noting how the whiplash-inducing switch-up from “only I can fix it” campaign promises to Trump’s current “well, it’s actually pretty hard” tone is just par for the Trump-branded golf course.
Seth Meyers, making a not-that-well-received joke about a Late Night fat cats calendar (kitties in monocles and top hats, etc) in response to Trump’s happy celebration with the oligarchy poised to cash in those campaign donation vouchers, joked that that kind of silliness is how he plans to get through the next four years of rampant, unfettered greed and hypocrisy.
Stephen Colbert meanwhile, quickly flashed the Time cover before tossing it away and noting, “There, I talked about it.” And, hey, whatever gets you through the wilderness. But hosts soldiered on, pointing out how Trump’s “man of the people” nonsense pandering crumbles to dust once the whipped-up hysteria of campaign rallies gives over to the harsh reality of actually, you know, having to govern.
“Before he was elected, he toured the country telling grandpas in folding chairs he was just like them, and as soon as he wins, he’s on a f**king marble balcony on Wall Street rocking a bell like he just ate a 72 ounce steak in less than an hour.”
seth meyers
“He jammed his little finger on that bell like it was the Diet Coke button in the Oval Office.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump’s back-slapping trip to Wall Street is not an aberration and that’s the frustrating thing about voters who both consider the Democrats elites, which is fair, but then also vote for this guy. It’s like if my dad said he was cutting down on pretzels because he’s on a low-sodium diet but then he just started chugging Morton’s straight from the shaker.”
seth meyers
[On Trump telling Meet the Press that he now suddenly can’t guarantee prices will come down, adding, “I can’t guarantee tomorrow”] “Wait what? You’re supposed to be the president. You sound like George Harrison at a press conference in 1968. [Liverpudlian accent] ‘Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. A body is merely a vessel and it will one day return to earth, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.'”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s repeated admission in Time that actually doing stuff is harder than babbling promises at a campaign rally] “F**k me! I can’t believe we’ve really gotta spend the next four years watching this idiot relearn how hard it is to be president.”
seth meyers
[On Trump’s explanation that fighting inflation is actually hard, you guys] “Also ‘It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up?’ You sound like a spokesperson for Boeing.”
seth meyers
[On Elon Musk getting an exponential return on the reported $277 million he spent getting Trump elected] “Ah yes, I remember those clips of reporters talking to working class voters in Midwestern diners. Hardscrabble folk struggling to get by, sitting down to drink their coffee and eat their eggs before they head off to the farm for the day. And reporters would say, ‘Which issue is most important to you, inflation, healthcare, housing?’ And they’d look up and say, ‘Ma’am, I just hope that Elon fella gets to $400 billion.'”
seth meyers
“Democrats, you’re like a magician failing to pull off the easiest trick at a four-year-old’s birthday party. You know, at this point maybe just let Bernie take over. [Bernie Sanders voice]’You know who made that quarter disappear? It was the millionaires and the billionaires. 99 percent of the quarters are hiding behind the top one percent of ears.'”
seth meyers
It’s One Apple, What Could It Cost, Ten Dollars?
(Yes, that’s a Lucille Bluth callback, and it’s never a bad time to remember the late, great Jessica Walter.) Anyway, it’s not like Donald Trump didn’t bring along some cold, hard facts to back up his claim that those darned groceries are too darned expensive. At his post-Time cover Wall Street ding-a-thon, Trump trotted out his favorite, 100 percent real fake story.
About the old woman who tearfully told him about the time she wanted to buy three apples, only Joe Biden’s economy meant she could only afford two apples, so she had to walk all the way back to the produce refrigerator section where—as everybody knows—stores put all their apples and put back one apple. In the apple-refrigerator.
[On Trump returning to the old lady apple story once again] “That is Donald Trump’s ‘Freebird.'”
jimmy kimmel
“Yeah you know, never in America should an old woman be forced to return an apple to the refrigerator at the grocery store, where they always keep the apples.”
michael kosta
[On Trump promising that that completely real old lady’s story will never happen in his America] “You know what doesn’t happen in America? Grocery stores don’t keep the apples in the f**king refrigerator. That story has more holes in it than the final season of Lost.”
seth meyers
“Now that poor old woman can’t afford her three-apple lunch. She can only afford two apples, and if she’s anything like the old women I see at my grocery store, and her carton of cigarettes and scratch-off tickets.”
michael kosta
“Who told you the story, the old woman or the woman at the counter? And by the way, if the best case scenario is the old woman buys three apples then maybe you should tell Republicans to stop floating cuts to Social Security. Because if you do cut Social Security, how are you ever gonna look this made up old woman in the eye again? She could be down to one apple!”
seth meyers
“By the way, that old woman’s name? Granny Smith.”
michael kosta
Bada-Thing
New Jersey is under attack! At least that’s the conclusion reached by various citizens there who’ve filmed unidentified drones scoping out their backyards, and at least one New Jersey elected official (Jeff Van Drew) immediately launched the conspiracy theory that Iran has some sort of “mother ship” parked off the Jersey shore. Instead of, you know, Travis and his buddies mail-ordering cheap electronics off of Temu and scoping out the neighborhood for women who don’t close their bedroom drapes all the way.
Yes, it’s Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast all over again, only with a somehow even more gullible populace ready to start firing their unregulated AR-15s wildly into the air. I’m sure everything will be fine.
“Floating white spots on a black background. A chilling image that cannot be faked unless you close your eyes and push on your eyelids a little bit.”
stephen colbert
“That’s right, unidentified flying objects over New Jersey. Or as they call them in New Jersey, ‘unidentified f**kin’ objects, ohhh!'”
michael kosta
“Witnesses say they’re as large as a car. Meaning not only is it capable of autonomous flight, it probably has cup holders.”
stephen colbert
“Mysterious drones in the sky are scary. And they raise a lot of questions, like can they shoot me? And after the year this has been, can they please shoot me?”
michael kosta
“Holy sh*t, there’s an Iranian mother ship launching drones off the east coast? Oh, you know what, probably to gather intelligence on New Jersey’s rich tapestries of shopping malls.”
michael kosta
[On rumors that the drones are focused on New Jersey military installations] “Yes, military research facilities in New Jersey. No doubt run by the CI-Eyyyyy!”
stephen colbert
[On Van Drew’s Fox News fear-mongering] “Look, I know some of you are like, ‘Hey can you stop making fun of New Jersey?’ You elected this guy. No.”
michael kosta
[On one witness claiming the drones caused their car’s clock to switch time] “That alone proves these drones are not of this world. Because no human being is capable of changing their car clock.”
stephen colbert
[On a White House spokesperson patiently explaining that, no, there is not an Iranian “mothership” off New Jersey] “No mothership? So what you telling me is Iran doesn’t have Independence Day technology?”
michael kosta
[On the hearing on the drone sightings being shunted off to the C-SPAN minor leagues] “C-SPAN 3, you know their slogan: We have no budget for a slogan.”
stephen colbert
[Redacted] of the Year
Like Jimmy Kimmel before him, Stephen Colbert took an incognito glance at PornHub’s rundown of the most popular porn search terms from each state.
[Singing] ‘They’re making a list. Checking it twice/Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice/ Santa Claus is coming…”
stephen colbert
“In Maryland, the top search was ‘girlfriend.’ Dorks!!!”
stephen colbert
[On Pennsylvania’s top term being simply, “naked women”] “That’s clearly Amish teens on Rumspringa getting their first crack at a computer.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“Trump invited the President of China to attend his inauguration but he didn’t invite Vladimir Putin. Today the UN issued a statement that said, ‘Now if you invite one dictator you have to invite the whole class.'”
jimmy fallon
[On a recent celebrity engagement] “Congratulations to both Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco. Or as they’re known by their celebrity couple name, Selena Gomez.”
stephen colbert
[On a brewing lawsuit between two fast food chains] “Yup, Chili’s versus Applebee’s. This might be the only peace agreement that Trump is qualified to negotiate.”
jimmy fallon
[On President Biden commuting the sentences of some 1,500 non-violent felons, and pardoning 39 others] “Wow, I did not know he had 39 sons.”
stephen colbert
“I believe that is an empathetic and generous act of forgiveness and hope… that will be knocked out of the headlines as soon as Trump threatens to bomb Manilla because he cut himself on one of their envelopes.”
stephen colbert
[On New York SantaCon policies] “But if you ban booze on the subway during SantaCon, you’re sentencing these young men to up to 20 minutes of not drinking. That means less festive light pole climbing and more quietly thinking about their dads.”
stephen colbert
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