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.
They’re Not Booing, They’re Saying “Boo-bert”
Late night hosts, pesky hunters of hypocrisy that they are, were all over the parade of supposed “family values” Republicans flocking to Donald Trump’s trial concerning that time he committed financial fraud to cover up hush money payments to the adult film actress he slept with while his third wife recovered from childbirth. Noting how virulent anti-porn moral scolds like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Congressman JD Vance have come rushing to give moral support to their chosen leader in his hour of humiliating need, said hosts roasted the GOP for so openly demonstrating that their only actual value is power.
Naturally, the fact that two of Trump’s staunchest New York courthouse cheerleaders are Congresspeople Matt Gaetz (rap sheet: DUI; bringing Nazis to the State of the Union; under investigation for underage sex trafficking) and Lauren Boebert (kicked out of a kids’ musical for intoxicated groping; married to a different guy once arrested for exposing himself to underage girls) didn’t go unnoticed. After Gaetz took his turn violating Trump’s court-imposed gag order by proxy underneath a protest sign calling him a bootlicker and Boebert’s turn at the mic saw her taunted by people chanting the name of the aforementioned musical at her, it was easy pickings. As Seth Meyers put it in his A Closer Look segment, “Gotta say, I’m surprised to see Lauren Boebert there. Not surprised she showed up, just surprised she hasn’t been kicked out yet. I mean, if you’re going to get handsy during a performance of Beetlejuice: The Musical, I can’t imagine how turned on you’d get for a hush money to a porn star trial.”
“That’s right, Lauren Boebert was in the audience. So whoever sat next to her might end up with their own hush money trial.”
stephen colbert
“It was another day of former President Trump’s hush money trial. And because of his gag order, a bunch of Republicans showed up at the courthouse and attacked the judge and prosecutors for him. They’re saying by next week Trump will run out supporters and just show up with a ventriloquist dummy.”
jimmy fallon
“[Matt] Gaetz and Boebert then appeared with their GOP colleagues outside the courthouse where they spent a lot of their time getting heckled. First, a protester held up a sign while Gaetz was talking that said, ‘Bootlickers.’ Of course, bootlicking is one of the things Trump paid hush money to cover up.”
seth meyers
[After outlining the Trump team’s extensive pizza lunch order] “Gaetz summoned the specter of violence by tweeting a reference to the far-right hate group the Proud Boys: ‘Standing back and standing by, Mr. President.’ Well of course he’s standing back. After all that pizza, you do not want to be in the blast radius.”
stephen colbert
“At the end of the press conference, Boebert tried to speak but was heckled by protesters with mentions of the musical she got kicked out of. [Plays clip of crowd chanting ‘Beetlejuice’] Don’t say it three times!”
seth meyers
“My favorite part is when all her supposed friends just walk away and abandon her. Dudes, you’re not gonna help her out? ‘Ooof, it’s Lauren’s turn. Let’s get the f**k out of here.”
seth meyers
“Well, it’s good publicity for Boebert, I guess, and good practice for Gaetz.”
seth meyers
“Seriously, this is how grimy and pathetic the Republican Party’s become. The only thing sadder than having to sit in a dreary New York City courtroom for your porn star hush money trial is sitting in a dreary New York City courtroom for someone else’s porn star hush money trial. ‘We’re in the Big Apple! What, should we catch a Broadway show? Should we grab a hot dog? I got it—let’s go down to the courthouse and hear Stormy Daniels describe the worst sex of her life!'”
seth meyers
“Sitting front row at the Trump trial must be like the MAGA version of sitting courtside at a Knicks game. Except if someone says, ‘Wow, they’re even bigger up close,’ they’re talking about the bags under Trump’s eyes.”
seth meyers
Roasted Under Oath
With former Donald Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen undergoing a second day of cross-examination, the former President and current defendant had to be wondering about his legal team’s strategy for discrediting Cohen. Sure, digging up every rude, crude, and downright vindictively mean thing Cohen ever said about his former boss might be the defense’s only hope at undermining Cohen’s credibility. But it also means that Trump is legally required to sit still and hear himself described in the official record as everything from “a boorish cartoon misogynist” to “a Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” to the admirably alliterative “dictator douchebag.”
The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic could only marvel at the under-oath gauntlet of public humiliation, imagining her own little playlet continuation of the cross-examination. “‘Did you also call the President Mr. Bitch-Tits? Yes? How about Resting Ball-Sack Face? That’s a good one. Commander-in-Cheese-Dick? You never said that, but you could, is that true?'”
“Cohen is the linchpin of the government’s case because his testimony directly ties Trump to the falsification of business records. Which, remember, is the actual crime here. The porn star hush money part is just a little thing we keep saying because it’s fun.”
desi lydic
[On the defense contending that a pivotal phone call was too short for Cohen to implicate Trump] “Today, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche pointed out that the call was only one minute and 36 seconds. So only slightly longer than the sex with Stormy.”
stephen colbert
[On Mike Johnson scoffing that Trump’s being persecuted for bad bookkeeping] “That’s not the charge. The charge is he funneled a hush money payment through his business and lied about it on official records to conceal it from voters during an election. You can’t do that. I can’t funnel a hush money payment through this show’s budget and call it something like wardrobe expenses. Mainly because everyone knows we don’t spend anything on my wardrobe.”
seth meyers
“As motivation for Cohen’s ‘vindictiveness,’ the defense tried to show that Cohen felt rejected by Trump, including getting him to confirm that he had a hard time getting tickets to Trump’s 2017 inauguration. Wow, that had to sting. Because we all know there were plenty of seats available.”
stephen colbert
“Look, I get the defense’s argument that you can’t trust Michael Cohen because he hates Donald Trump. But to be fair, everyone who’s ever worked with Donald Trump hates Donald Trump. At some point, you gotta be like, ‘I think it’s Trump.'”
desi lydic
Love Greater Than Gold… Or Not
In the other high-profile political corruption case going on in the New York area, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez faces allegations of accepting a whole lot of bribe money from overseas businesspeople. As the case against Menendez mounts on the back of the huge haul of loose cash and gold bars seized from the Senator’s home, Menendez appears to be banking on the “take my wife, please” defense, with his lawyers asserting that the whole bribery and influence peddling plot was wife Nadine’s doing.
Or, as Desi Lydic put it, “He’s facing corruption charges and now we know he’s going with the Borat defense: ‘Mah Wife!'”
“So Bob Menendez’s argument is that his wife was secretly orchestrating a corrupt international bribery scheme and hoarding gold bars in his own house and he never knew it. And that, gentlemen, is why you need to ask your wife about her day.”
desi lydic
“Seriously though, the balls on this guy to throw his own wife under the bus. Is anyone buying this? Menendez’s lawyers are actually arguing that his wife had the gold bars because she’s of Lebanese descent, and the Lebanese love gold. Which is a stereotype I did not know even existed.”
desi lydic
Potpourri
“Yesterday, Mayor Adams announced New York will host its first-ever rat summit this fall. To prepare, the city has been hosting practice rat summits on every subway platform for the last 120 years.”
stephen colbert
[On a Virginia school district restoring Confederate names to public schools] “Guys come on, after all that effort to remove that disgusting legacy we’re just putting the names back now? It’s like asking your doctor to reattach that hairy mole.”
desi lydic
“Okay now, let’s be honest. This isn’t about restoring your heritage. If it was, then you’d name it, Hey, My Cousin’s Kinda Hot High School. I can make that joke because I’m from Kentucky and my cousin is kinda hot.”
desi lydic
“Lego just announced a new 5,000-piece Lord of the Rings fortress set that costs $460. Anyway, if you’re looking for a line to end a first date, that oughta do it.”
jimmy fallon
“Democratic presidential candidate Jason Palmer announced yesterday that he’s ended his campaign, and he knew he’d made the right decision when the announcement echoed.”
seth meyers
[On Trump calling his trial a “scam” and a “sham”] “Coincidentally, ‘Scam’ and ‘Sham’ are also the Secret Service code names for Eric and Don Jr.”
stephen colbert
“Yeah,Trump’s going to Barron’s high school graduation. Next week he’s going to Eric’s.”
jimmy fallon
“The makers of Oreos yesterday unveiled new packaging inspired by the Star Wars franchise. The way it works is, the first three Oreos are pretty good, the next three are pretty bad, and the rest you eat just ’cause you ate the first six.”
seth meyers
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