Thurs Night Monologues: Packing Up the RNC Clown Car

Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Jordan Klepper

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.

Debased (How Low Can You Go)

Unity is easy to come by in today’s MAGA-conquered GOP. All dissenting voices, no matter how tentatively they objected to the worst excesses and most hateful rhetoric of Donald Trump, have been purged. What’s left addressing the Republican National Convention this year is a sycophantic cavalcade of yes-people, freely adopting the unbridled lies and overt bigotry of their Glorious Leader. All previous criticism of the unquestioned head of the Republican Party is hand-waved away as the disloyal ramblings of those who had not yet seen the light.

That readily proven flip-flopping would have sunk political careers back in the days when there was room for shame in the GOP. In this hell-bent-for-dictatorship rabble now is merely bold-faced, full-throated, Putin-esque endorsement of a man many RNC speakers are on record calling “America’s Hitler” (new running mate J.D. Vance), “diminished “and “unhinged” (former rival Nikki Haley), or Ted Cruz, whose onetime RNC defiance of the coming Trump tsunami evaporated in the scorching heat of MAGA abuse and Trump’s white hot need to humble and humiliate. As Seth Meyers summed up the current GOP’s slavish subservience, as epitomized by the fawning Cruz, “‘Vote your conscience—or have your conscience surgically removed by a team of scientists who make you incapable of feeling shame and then say, God bless Donald Trump.'”

[On Cruz and Vance’s beards, grown concurrently with their surrender] “Side note, what is it with guys who went from hardcore Trump critics to subservient Trump toadies growing beards? It’s like they said, ‘If I endorsed him I could never look myself in the mirror again’ and then realized, ‘Oh, maybe it won’t be too bad if I change the way I look. Oh, look at you, you’re a different guy, you’re a different guy!'”
seth meyers

[On former Never Trump candidate Nikki Haley’s infamous, “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement—period” RNC speech] “Wow, exclamation point. Who could have seen this coming, question mark. Open parentheses, eye roll, close parentheses. I’m just f-asterisk, asterisk, asterisk-ing with you, comma, we all saw it coming, period.”
seth meyers

“This is what I don’t get about Republicans. If someone spent years comparing me to Hitler and heroin and then turned on a dime and started sucking up to me the second they wanted a job, I don’t think I could get over it. Although Wally does sometimes taunt me via cue card when no one’s looking.”
seth meyers

RNC You Never

Well, that happened. This year’s Republican National Convention finally wrapped up with an appropriately farcical ramp up to Donald Trump’s interminably rambling, nigh-incoherent speech on Thursday. (Which bumped all the late night shows back about an hour if you’re wondering why this went up so late.) Or perhaps the majesty and dignity of featured speaker/performers Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock simply escapes us.

Regardless, the last night of the RNC was more of the same, with Republican speakers dutifully bending the knee to their chosen one, their alternating hate speech (against immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, Democrats, and immigrants again) and shameless lies echoing through the cavernous Wisconsin convention center. The recent attack on Donald Trump (by a MAGA-themed loony with a rapid-fire war weapon Republicans love so much) also lent a tinge of unbridled cultishness to an already North Korean-like atmosphere, with speaker after glassy-eyed speaker claiming that God himself saved Trump’s life. (Nobody had much to say about the other people who were shot instead. Guess God only saves the A-list.) As Jordan Klepper summed up the vibe, “Fine, every cult needs a leader who was chosen by God and has multiple wives.”

[On J.D. Vance’s anecdote about his grandmother stashing 19 loaded handguns all around her house] “Yeah, that’s the American spirit. Unhinged paranoia!”
jordan klepper

“I love how gun nuts in this country are always like, ‘We’re responsible gun owners. Anyway, here’s a glock I taped under my baby’s crib.'”
jordan klepper

“[On Kimberly Guilfoyle’s typically full-volume speech] “Why does she sound like she’s doing a rendition of Braveheart at a Long Island middle school?”
seth meyers

[After Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed a tangled flag at the Trump rally looked like an angel] “Divine origami? That’s what we’re going with?”
jordan klepper

[After a montage of former Trump officials Rex Tillerson, Mike Pence, John Bolton, Ty Cobb, Nick Mulvaney, H.R. McMaster, Mark Milley, William Barr, and John Kelly all proclaiming Trump completely unfit for office] “Okay, you know, good points. But did you see that flag?”
jordan klepper

[On disgraced former Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson’s RNC attire] “I do tip my hat to their audacity. They claim to be the tribunes of the working class while looking like a human pocket square. “
seth meyers

[Continuing with Carlson] “As we’ve said for many years now, MAGA weirdos also have weird little obsessions. Like increasing your sperm count by exposing your testicles to red light therapy, or getting mad because the green M&M isn’t hot any more because she stopped wearing high heels. When in fact she’s hotter now because she’s not trying too hard, and she can walk in the meat-packing district without getting her heel caught between the cobblestones.”
seth meyers

[On J.D. Vance claiming to a nodding Carlson that, under Democrats, the government is run by “crazy cat ladies”] “These guys are so weird. If you saw these guys having this conversation at a party, you’d turn to your spouse and say, ‘One of us needs to pretend we have catastrophic diarrhea so we can get the hell out of here.'”

[After Hulk Hogan’s shirt-ripping endorsement speech] “Whoa, thank you, the healing has begun. He’s gonna make a great energy secretary.”
jordan klepper

[Also regarding caught-on-tape bigot Hogan’s speech] “I think Trump just locked up the vote of every teenager in 1992.”
jordan klepper

“Best known recently for the Google search ‘Hulk Hogan still alive?'”
stephen colbert

“This whole week’s been like kind of like WWE. Everyone’s sweaty and yelling, and most of it’s fake.”
stephen colbert

[On the oft-repeated RNC lie that the economy was better under Trump] “Yes, we all remember the halcyon days of 2020 when the economy was soaring and toilet paper was plentiful and we all weren’t wearing t-shirts on our faces and wiping our mail down with Clorox and filming our TV shows at home without our hair and makeup teams, which left us looking like a ghost haunting a Dickensian orphanage.”
seth meyers

[After Kid Rock’s musical performance] “I never thought I would say this, but could Lara Trump sing instead?”
stephen colbert

“Thats how you achieve unity, by making our ears bleed together.”
jordan klepper

“The crowd was entertained by musical performer and living embodiment of an above-ground pool, Kid Rock.”
stephen colbert

This Guy Wants To Ban Drag?

While it might not be the bad news for Florida Congressman and accused (by his own party’s former Speaker) predator of underage girls Matt Gaetz,we’re all hoping to hear hosts did make some merry sport of Gaetz’s appearance (during his RNC appearance) on Thursday. And while that may seem childish, Gaetz did appear for his speech looking like he’d just come directly from a discount strip mall Botox clinic and student eyebrow-threading and makeup academy. Strap in for plenty of one-liners like Stephen Colbert’s exclamation, “Holy bro-tox!”

[After a strangely Botoxed-looking Matt Gaetz slipped in some anti-trans hate by proclaiming, under Trump, there were “only two genders”] “And introducing the third!”
jordan klepper

“He looks like a flame-broiled Donny Osmond.”
stephen colbert

“Wow, it looks like his eyebrows are reacting to a picture of his eyebrows.”
jordan klepper

“I am so surprised, and from the looks of it so is Matt Gaetz.”
stephen colbert

“He looks like he’s trying to be an NBA player’s third wife.”
Anthony anderson

“Matt Gaetz looks like a wax drag queen from Whoville.”
stephen colbert

“If he’s not too careful, Trump’s gonna move on him like a bitch.”
anthony anderson

“Matt Gaetz looks like if the Joker worked at Sephora.”
stephen colbert

“It’s okay Matt, there’s nothing wrong with trying to look as young as the girls you date.”
anthony anderson

“He looks like if Pennywise went to law school.”
stephen colbert

“Or like his plastic surgeon went to medical school on a riverboat.”
stephen colbert

Rambling Man

While the shows going live (The Late Show and The Daily Show) managed to sit through the entirety of Donald Trump’s record-breakingly long and incoherent speech closing out the RNC before their episodes finally aired, the rest of the late-night gang had to make do with merely the first few minutes. But that was more than enough.

A visibly sweaty Trump rambled on about everything from favorite rally topic Hannibal Lecter to his recent brush with an assassin’s AR-15, with plenty of time to spare for insulting nicknames, hazy promises, and the occasional shout-out to the drawing power of Kid Rock. Still, even a fleeting glimpse provided plenty of material for all. Presumably, next week will see late-night hosts digging through the entire mess—unless Trump does or says something even more bananas to wipe this from our memories by then. Odds are about 50-50, honestly.

“We are live! But after watching that speech, I’m dead inside.”
stephen colbert

[On Trump claiming he’s going to be the President of the whole country, not just those who agree with him] “‘Which is why i’ll be deporting the half that doesn’t like me!'”
jordan klepper

“Yes, I will be president for all of America, both my supporters and the evil, radical left Democrat socialists who want to unleash Latino Hannibal Lecter—or as they call him, Señor Cannibale.'”
stephen colbert

[On Trump’s vocal RNC crowd] “Apparently when they were chanting ‘four more years,’ he thought they meant of this speech .”
stephen colbert

[After Trump came out and told the crowd, “I am trying to buy your vote”] “He’s trying to do a quid pro quo in the middle of his nomination speech.”
jordan klepper

[Rebutting Trump’s claim that his pet border wall was almost completed] “You built 52 miles of new wall. 52. ‘I built the wall already, but somehow, these skinny little immigrants were able to squeeze through that tiny gap, that tiny, 1,400-mile gap I left. I am hereby callin on Mexico to produce chubbier muchachos.'”
stephen colbert

[After Trump promised a second term would represent the greatest four years in American history] “Best four years? I don’t know, what about 1991-95? Wu-Tang, Nirvana, unironic fanny packs, Michael Jackson before it got too weird.”
jordan klepper

“That’s how you know Trump is gonna get through this. Even in the middle of a story about almost being assassinated, he felt the need to reflexively brag about his crowd size.”
jordan klepper

[On Trump claiming the key to national unity involves all the criminal charges against him being dropped] “So the key to unifying the country is absolving Donald Trump of his crimes. Anything else Democrats should do? ‘America, just think about how united the country would be if Chuck Schumer would punch himself in the dick. Think about it!'”
jordan klepper

That Democratic Backbone

Despite all of that farcical Republican spectacle, news continues to emerge that certain Democratic lawmakers and big money donors are urging President Biden to drop out of the race. The fact that this story is routinely based on anonymous sources that have often been proven wrong doesn’t detract from the unnerving fact that, with the most pivotal American election in history a mere four months off, Democrats appear to be arranging themselves into a circular firing squad.

There are other issues at play, like the suspicions about mainstream media outlets’ billionaire owners all leaning hard right into Trump’s promised tax cuts, the undeniable fact that a “Dems in disarray” narrative equals ratings, or that it’s mainly rich white male donors who are pressuring for a free-for-all open convention to pick a successor. (Rather than facing the prospect of a thoroughly qualified Black woman fronting the ticket.) It’s a mess, is what we’re saying, with Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Anthony Anderson quipping about Biden’s recent Covid diagnosis, “which is the first positive thing thats happened to [Democrats] in weeks.”

“That’s right, Biden has Covid. Luckily he can’t spread it since Democrats have been distancing themselves from him since the debate.”
jimmy fallon

[After a beaming Katy Tur predicted, “We are close to the end”] “Of his candidacy. To be clear. You’re talking about an 81-year-old, you’ve got to be clear about that.”
jordan klepper

“Senator Bernie Sanders said he still thinks Biden could win big against Trump. For the first time in his life, Bernie felt what it was like to be in the one percent.”
jimmy fallon

[On unconfirmed reports that former President Obama was pressuring Biden to step down] “Now this could be devastating to Biden. He just lost the most important resource an older white man can have, his one Black friend.”
anthony anderson

Potpourri

[On the unprecedentedly eventful last seven days in politics] “Years from now children will be reading about this in history books. I mean, not in Florida.”
jordan klepper