Tuesday’s monologues zeroed in several of Donald Trump’s latest ignomies, from having to meet with the leader of a country he just threatened to annex to his Transportation Department presiding over a massive cluster-whoops at Newark’s airport. Throw in the glitz of the Met Gala and the death of Skype and you’ve got our round-up of the night’s best jokes.
Desi Lydic
The Daily Show host leapt into the Trump administration breach on Tuesday, first tackling the president’s beyond-awkward White House meeting with the newly elected (thanks to Trump’s threats and bullying) Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“Trump has been obsessed with making Canada the 51st state ever since he discovered that Epstein Island was not eligible.”
“Aww, it’s like watching an episode of Love on the Spectrum. If the spectrum was fascism.”
on trump trying to patch things up with the neighbor he’s been stalking
“I think Donald Trump just got friend-zoned. Canada’s like, ‘You have been such an amazing ally but I think we really work better as sovereign neighbors. Besides, I already have a girlfriend. You haven’t met her because she lives up in Canada—aw, that excuse doesn’t work.'”
on carney telling trump, in uncertain terms, “canada is not for sale”
“Canada is not going to f*ck you. God, this is why you don’t date someone who lives on the same continent as you—awkward.”
on trump refusing to take the hint
Lydic moved on to Tuesday’s deadline for people to get that Real ID, something that’s been in the works for a few decades but still has local newscasts packed with people just discovering that their old ID’s just don’t cut it any more.
“The Real ID is not that different from a regular ID. It just has some enhanced security features that verify your identity as a little goody two-shoes that does whatever the government says—nerds!”
“Wait until everybody starts showing up at the airport with no idea that they don’t have the right ID. People are going to flip the f*ck out. There are going to be Karens flipping out on their phones with other Karens in the background filming rants on their phones, just an infinite tunnel of Karens.”
Not that you should be flying anywhere at this point. As Lydic showed, the recent chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport (where air traffic controllers recently lost all radar for a horrifying 90 seconds) is just the latest unaddressed failure of the country’s systems under Trump’s purges of the air traffic control infrastructure.
“‘I don’t know where you are?’ That’s a terrifying thing to hear. There’s not a lot of backup systems. The pilot can’t be like, ‘Okay, forget radar, let’s try something else—Marco!'”
“You know what, he is so relatable. We get stuck at the airport, he gets stuck at the airport. We don’t know how to run the Department of Transportation, he doesn’t know how to run the Department of Transportation.”
on trump’s transportation secretary and former real world star sean duffy only finding out about the newark fiasco after being stuck at newark airport
Stephen Colbert
Asking if anyone in his Tuesday audience was from abroad, Colbert told them, “All right, well you live here now.” That’s because of that whole Newark air traffic debacle of course, with Colbert piling on former reality show contestant turned guy in charge of all air safety Sean Duffy, who blamed the Biden administration. Even though Biden passed $25 billion in air safety infrastructure upgrades that were halted by Trump’s DOGE firings of the people actually making those improvements.
“The man in charge of fixing this mess is, unfortunately, Transportation Secretary and White Lotus guest remembering what he did at the full moon party, Sean Duffy.”
“Those are the people who do the stuff! There are plenty of useless people you could have fired, like the TSA agent who says you can’t bring in a snow globe.”
on trump having fired 400 faa employees charged with preventing things like the newark system failure
“Counterpoint: if you could afford all costs, you wouldn’t be in Newark.”
on one faa official telling travelers to avoid flying into newark “at all costs”
“Wait a second, there’s such a thing as trauma leave? Byeeeee!”
on several traumatized newark controllers being put on trauma leave afetr the ordeal
Colbert did a little digging into Trump’s plan to reopen Alcatraz prison, discovering that it—and Trump’s apocryphal story about sharks eating Alcatraz escapees—likely stemmed from a Mar-a-Lago-area TV station running Clint Eastwood’s Escape From Alcatraz last week.
“He thinks movies are real life! ‘I saw a terrifying documentary, folks, last night about this guy Shrek and his talking donkey. By the way, folks, don’t let the wife fool you. She looks beautiful, but she is also… a Shrek.”
And then it was time for Colbert to wave a stuttering, screen-freezing goodbye to outdated video chat app Skype.
“There’s sad news in the wide world of web, because the pioneering teleconferencing app Skype is officially dead. And if you can’t attend the memorial service in person, there will be a Zoom link.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel also checked in on that awkward White House meeting, along with a few other Trump tidbits and a eulogy for Skype.
“Poor Mark Carney had a hell of a job today. It was like an Ewok going to a meeting on the Death Star.”
“That’s true, he doesn’t take no for an answer. In fact, he was found liable for it in a court of law.”
on trump dodging carney’s rejection
“He said Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Goodfellas, The Godfather, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is a film he loves so much. It inspired his nicknames for Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr.”
on trump (or Francis Ford Grope-ola) listing his favorite movies
“It took a while, we finally found a draft Trump won’t dodge.”
on trump announcing the 2027 nfl draft will be held in washington d.c.
“Not helping was Skype’s slogan, which was ‘Zoom for people who haven’t tried Zoom—please don’t try Zoom.'”
“Never forget, Skype was the original way for your coworkers to catch you masturbating during a meeting.”
Taylor Tomlinson
The After Midnight host opened with her rundown of last night’s Met Gala.
“Well as we all know, last night was the Oscars for clothes, also known at the Met Gala.”
“Now, if you’re anything like me, you wait for this one special night to go, ‘Oh, again? And what is it?'”
“Some noticed that Gala chair and Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour had a small stain on her dress. So now we know next year’s theme is going to be The Skin of Your Former Assistant.”
Tomlinson moved on to Facebook, which is reeling from a book published by a former employee which revealed, among other things, that the app catered privacy-invading ads to young women after detecting their online activity.
“This is so f*cked up. This is more predatory than when you delete photos of you and your ex online and guys immediately DM you like, ‘Hey, I just wanna say hi.'”
on facebook pouncing on deleted selfies to market beauty products
“And this info is when she worked at Facebook nearly 10 years ago. Now it’s even worse. Now when you Google, ‘Where is my polling location?,’ and it gives you pictures of Donald Trump scoring the winning goal at the World Cup.”
“Which is not even smart, okay? If I’m using words like that, I’m not talking about me, I’m probably talking about Mark Zuckerberg.”
on facebook pinpointing users’ vulnerability from use of words like “worthless,” “insecure,” and “stupid”
Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show host came out for his monologue with a piano strapped to his back—apologizing to Andre 3000 for showing up to the Met Gala in the same outfit.
“Last night was the Met Gala and it rained all night. Thankfully, everybody was able to stay dry under Diana Ross’ dress.”
“That’s right, thousands of celebrities from all over the world came together with one common goal, figuring out how to sit.”
After that, it was Trump’s Canadian bad date and tariff debacle, Newark’s near-miss, and some fast food/fascism news.
“Trump said if Canada became the 51st state, it would be a wonderful marriage. And people were like, ‘How would he know?'”
“Trump’s tariffs against China are raising the cost of wedding dresses. It’s not good. Now brides are saying yes to the jeggings at Kohl’s.”
“It’s getting to the point where we really should clap when the plane lands.”
“Burger King is facing a lawsuit saying that their Whopper hamburgers are smaller than advertised. Meanwhile Burger King’s legal defense is that the king has divine power and doesn’t recognize any courts.”
Seth Meyers
Tuesday saw Meyers doing a quick-hit monologue on some favorite targets from Donald Trump to Mark Zuckerberg, with a little indirect Elon Musk shade thrown in for good measure.
“I love that you can tell from his social media posts what movie he watched on the plane. Honestly, I’m dying to know what he thought of Conclave.”
on trump’s plan to repoen alcatraz as a prison (over pics from Escape from Alcatraz and trump cosplaying as the pope)
“Trump joked yesterday with reporters about becoming the Pope and said, ‘I would not be able to be married though.’ [Photo of white smoke emanating from the Vatican] And it looks like Melania’s voted.”
“And to honor Trump’s military service, he won’t be there.”
on trump’s planned $100 million birthday military parade
“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that A.I. can be useful for talking through difficult conversations that users need to have with people in their lives. Oh buddy, if that were true, your family would have done it a long time ago.”
“Developers at the video game Grand Theft Auto have delayed the release of its sixth installment. Apparently, during the beta testing they couldn’t get anybody to steal the Cybertrucks.”
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