On what counts for a slower than usual news Thursday during a Donald Trump administration, late-night hosts had a little time to play catchup with Elon Musk over the federal government and Donald Trump’s unsurprisingly divisive appearance at the national prayer breakfast. And just a touch of Super Bowl fever and bird flu thrown in for flavor. Here’s our rundown.
Seth Meyers
The theme of Seth Meyers’ Thursday A Closer Look was essentially that the only good news is how ineptly the bad news is being implemented. Running down the various ways that Trump’s divisive executive orders (spending freeze, invading Gaza, trade wars, ending birthright citizenship) have been walked back, blocked by judges, and re-jiggered by Trump’s own late-night social media posts, Meyers appeared to take a little solace in the administration’s limping progress on the feet they’ve been accidentally shooting.
Less so with the actions of the person Meyers’ is provocatively terming “the actual president,” Elon Musk. Decrying Musk and his “small team of unaccountable hatchet men” slashing away at vital government agencies, Meyers termed it “a billionaire coup,” and again took some comfort in the fact that, as this week’s mounting public protests have shown, the country appears to be turning on Musk as well.
[On Musk setting his sights on gutting the Federal Aviation Administration] “Our aviation system! So now our planes will be controlled by a guy who can’t even get himself off the f*ckin’ ground?” [Photo of Musk’s widely mocked leap at a Trump rally.]
[On Musk explaining his plan to cut essentially all regulations and then add back the few we end up actually needing] “Yeah, totally. We just get rid of all regulations by default and if it turns out there’s some crazy reason we couldn’t possibly have anticipated for why we needed, I don’t know, food safety inspections, or federal approval of pharmaceuticals, or aviation guidelines, or clean water regulations, or baby formula testing, or rules against dumping toxic waste into rivers and making the fish glow like Mr. Burns, we just say, ‘Oops, my bad,’ and put them back in.”
[On Democratic lawmakers being turned away from government buildings on Musk’s orders] “I’d be so embarrassed if I were a senator and I couldn’t enter a building based on something called DOGE, which as a reminder, started as a meme about a Shiba Inu. That would be like yelling,’ I demand entry,’ and having an iced tea-sipping Kermit tell you, ‘But that’s none of my business.'”
[On the authority being granted over government agencies to Musk’s equally unelected gaggle of 20-something henchmen] “Imagine being a career civil servant and having to justify your job to a 19-year-old. It’s the government, not a Chipotle.”
Desi Lydic
The Daily Show host, too, initially focused on the heartening spectacle of watching Trump underlings like Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appearing to forget how to speak (“un-habitable” not being a word) while sweatily walking back some of Trump’s most outrage-provoking executive orders.
[After clips of Leavitt trying to explain what Trump really meant when he said the U.S. would invade and “own” the Gaza Strip] “Awww, Trump’s press secretary just had her first walk-back. This is an important rite of passage for Trump spokespeople. Their bull mitzvah, if you will.”
[After Trump’s own social media explanation appeared to one CNN correspondent to both walk back and double down on the Gaza announcement] “A backtrack and a double-down. [Olympic announcer voice] ‘And now, on the uneven bars, Donald Trump will attempt the rare combination backtrack/double-down. And let’s see if he breaks every bone in his body.'”
But, as Lydic noted, Trump’s “flooding the zone” strategy has some messy metaphorical consequences as the president on Wednesday signed a sweeping executive order banning trans women from women’s sports.
“But while his team attempts to fix his Gaza plan, Trump has already moved on. Because he’s basically the Norovirus. Every day he spews executive orders all over the place and while we struggle to clean up all the puke, he comes out the other end with something even worse.”
[On Trump’s speech] “You notice how he paused just before ‘invade your locker rooms?’ Like, ‘Maybe we won’t make that illegal. Should have proofread this.'”
“It’s bad enough that he’s banned trans women from sports, but spare us the performance of pretending that this is a top issue for women in this country. Maybe start with, I don’t know, reproductive rights, or pay inequality, or why it’s 2025 and still, none of my clothes have pockets.”
Stephen Colbert
Colbert on Thursday went all-in mocking Elon Musk and his barely-legal team of tech bros currently working to “tear apart 250 years of democracy like seagulls fighting over a bag of French fries.” Citing the zeal of unelected billionaire Musk and his “cyber-dorks” (or “crypto-chipmunks”/”teenage mutant incels”) to zealously track down any hint of Donald Trump’s hated DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in federal workplaces, Colbert had even rougher things to say than a few pointed nicknames.
[On Musk’s crew hunting for DEI at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] “Oh yeah, everybody knows the weather is full of DEI, okay? Snowflakes are girls, tornadoes are boys, and sleet is bisexual. Is it rain? Is it snow? It could go both ways.”
[On Musk’s plan to gut NOAA, which, among other things, is responsible for early warnings about tornadoes and hurricanes] “But under the reign of Elon’s pubescent net rangers, tornado warnings are gonna be a little different. ‘Hey kids! Kids, get in the house. The government just sent me a meme that says, ‘skibidi basement?’”
[On Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy excitedly tweeting the “big news” that Musk is setting his sights on the FAA’s flight safety software] “I’ve also got big news. I just bought an Amtrak rail pass.”
“Great! Because when I think of Elon Musk, I think air safety.” [Footage of SpaceX rocket spectacularly failing to launch.]
“It’s not all bad news,” Colbert continued, “some of it is also scary.” That’s because bird flu has been ominously reappearing all over the country just as Trump’s HHS pick and noted raw milk consumer and anti-science conspiracist Robert F. Kennedy Jr appears headed to confirmation. Cue a quick cut to Colbert donning a Covid-era face masks.
[On reports that the bird flu has leapt from birds to cattle] “Well this can mean only one thing—the birds are having sex with the cows. Please, please… no one tell the bees.”
[On scientists claiming that rapidly mutating new bird flu variant H5N1 appears to be “smarter than all of us”] “Okay, but have you met all of us? That’s a low bar. May I remind you that all of us watched 13 seasons of The Masked Singer.”
[On Sunday’s Super Bowl] “This year the matchup is Kansas City Chiefs, who are hoping to win a third straight title, versus the Philadelphia Eagles, who are hoping their mascot doesn’t die of bird flu.”
Taylor Tomlinson
The After Midnight host zagged when facing down the flood of “awful stuff going on” by addressing an article explaining the “splintering” coping mechanism people have developed. As Tomlinson explained with comparisons to a couple of popular, necessarily disturbing recent movies and TV shows, such compartmentalization, while allowing people to get on with their day, isn’t without its grotesque side effects.
“Severance is about splitting your work self, aka your innie, and your outside self, aka your outie, into two different people. I get this. In stand-up comedy, we separate our fun trauma, which makes us all laugh, from our real trauma, which we do not talk about.”
[On the internet trend of people getting distressed while an A.I. explains who their “outtie” really is] “It would suck to hear, ‘Your outie still uses the word ‘awsomesauce.'”
“The Substance is a movie about an aging Hollywood starlet who who takes a drug that makes her body spit out a younger, hotter, more popular version of herself. Yes, like what Goldie Hawn injected to get Kate Hudson. Or what tennis injected to get pickleball.”
Jimmy Fallon
Taking the compartmentalization trend as far as it can go, The Tonight Show‘s Jimmy Fallon’s monologue was all jokes and skits about Sunday’s Super Bowl… and nothing else.
“For all the players and coaches it’s a dream come true to play in the Super Bowl. And for all the referees, it’s a dream come true to see Patrick Mahomes in person.”
[On the country’s biggest wagering holiday] “I don’t like to bet, but let’s just say if Taylor Swift and Donna Kelce side-hug more than six times, you might not see me on Monday.”
Okay, Fallon let the real world slip in there, just a little.
“This year, the Super Bowl will be watched in 180 countries. Well, 179 if we take over Canada by Saturday.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel split the difference between Trump-fatigued doom-joking and Super Bowl anticipation, something made easier by the fact that Donald Trump will be the first sitting president to attend the big game on Sunday.
[On the Kendrick Lamar halftime show] “They believe it will be the largest group of people ever to see anyone call Drake a b*tch.”
“Donald Trump will be at the game. This is fun, he said he’s going to let Elon pick the winner this year.”
“I think the reason Trump’s going to the Super Bowl is he can’t stand to have one day where he’s on TV less than Taylor Swift.”
Eventually Kimmel zeroed in on Trump’s appearance at the national prayer breakfast, which gave Kimmel a new opportunity to continue his long tradition of coming up with themed Trump nicknames, this time settling on “Dope John Paul” and “MAGA Teresa.”
“Trump goes to these prayer breakfasts because he doesn’t like it when people worship anyone other than him.”
“He covered a lot of subjects. He bragged about deporting immigrants, his war on diversity, fighting transgenders—all the sacred teachings of Jesus.”
“If Trump met Jesus, he’d call him a loser, he’d tell him to get a haircut and put a shirt on.”
“Trump also told the audience we need to bring religion back. And who better to bring it back than the guy who sells God Bless the USA bibles for 59.99?”
[On Trump digressing from his prayer for the families still grieving after the Washington D.C. air disaster to muse about how golf balls at the driving range never crash into each other(?)] “‘Anyway, condolences to the families. Now let me tell you how 9/11 was like skee-ball.'”
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