
Another day in the second Donald Trump administration, another head-swimming raft of news ranging from ludicrous to five-alarm alarming for late-night hosts, a nightly gauntlet the intrepid comics have quickly come to terms with. Here’s our nightly roundup.
Desi Lydic
This week’s The Daily Show host introduced what she promised will be a new recurring segment called, Is It Legal? on Tuesday. Throwing to correspondent Troy Iwata after a series of stories about Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Lydic demanded answers, leaving the increasingly harried Iwata to blurt some variant of “I have no f*cking idea anymore!” from behind a growing mountain of legal textbooks.
It’s been that sort of second week in the second Trump administration, as Lydic did her level best to climb her own daunting mound of executive orders and literal takeovers of government buildings and computer networks by Musk (aka “white nationalist Tony Stark”) and his army of tech bro accomplices, one of whom is better known online as “Bigballs.”
Still, Lydic was unbowed. Taking on Trump’s vendetta against “everyone who’s ever come after him,” Lydic told a cheering audience, “I’m not scared. So bring it on.” And to underscore her point, she even spelled her name so Trump wouldn’t leave her off the hit list, “J-O-R-D-A-N- K-L-E-P-P-E-R.”
[After a clip of Trump promising Elon Musk would take care of all the “tremendous fat” we have in government] [Biting knuckles] “Ohhh, don’t take the bait, Desi. Be the bigger person, be the bigger person…”
“That’s right, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and guy who cheers in the wrong parts of Saving Private Ryan.”
[On Musk’s crusade to wipe out foreign aid program USAID] “Yes, the richest man in the world is cutting off aid to poor countries. Why can’t you just be a normal billionaire and co-host Shark Tank or run an NBA team into the ground?”
[On Republican Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) supporting Trump and Musk’s actions with a metaphor about breaking eggs and omelettes being better than sex] “Did we really have to learn all about this guy’s sex life just so he could get to a common expression? ‘I can only climax when someone steps on my balls. Anyway, there’s no use cryin’ over spilled milk.'”
[On Trump planning to fire hundreds of law enforcement officials involved in investigating his January 6 coup] “What the f*ck? These agents were doing their job and enforcing the law and now they’re getting fired? That is not how it works. I cannot believe I have to explain firing to the star of The Apprentice. That was your whole fake job.”
Stephen Colbert
After a brief detour musing on the mixed blessing that would be a potential extinction level event (don’t worry, there’s only a two percent chance a recently tracked asteroid will collide with Earth in 2032), Stephen Colbert got down to business. That business being a dissection of how Donald Trump is working to “haphazardly dismantle our government like a chimp with a chainsaw.”
Specifically, Colbert plucked much of his jokes from the ongoing chopping spree of Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire mega-donor to Donald Trump’s campaign who is now ensconced in several sensitive government agencies. Colbert mocked Musk’s imaginary authority as Trump’s hastily appointed “special government employee,” noting, “Yeah, special government employee. It’s super official and super important. It even comes with a plastic badge from Hasbro and My First Vial of Ketamine kit.”
[On Musk] “A very sad, very lonely little boy who had all the money in the world yet could not buy a single droplet of cool.”
“Elon was able to buy his way into our government. And now he’s blowing it up like a Tesla in self-driving mode.”
[After lamenting that vacuum inventor James Dyson at least went on to grow strawberries rather than dismantle democracy] “Elon, you could be the next Dyson! You never stop sucking.”
[On Musk’s barely legal engineer henchmen] “So they should be unstoppable, as long as their mission does not involve renting a car.”
[On Musk’s plan to run all government spending through artificial intelligence programs to determine budget cuts] “Ah yes, famously accurate A.I. The cutting edge technology that told Google users to ‘eat at least one small rock per day.’ Now I know on the surface that sounds dumb, but a rock is the only way to defeat the scissors that A.I. told you to swallow first.”
[On Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) saying Americans should stop “bellyaching”] “Yeah, everybody knows you can fudge the Constitution a little bit. That’s why at the very end it says, ‘Or not!’ [With smiling hands-up emoji.]”
[On Senator John Kennedy’s whole ‘omelettes are better than sex’ comparison] “I’ve been eating at the wrong diner.”
Seth Meyers
Taking his one night a week off from the longer-form A Closer Look segment meant Meyers’ monologue was more zinger-heavy than in-depth on Tuesday. Still, when your zingers coalesce around an ongoing constitutional crisis or three, perhaps a parade of quick-hitters is all you can manage.
First up were Meyers’ jokes about Donald Trump’s aborted trade war with Mexico and Canada.
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced yesterday that President Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports from Canada have been paused for a month in exchange for implementing a 1.3 billion dollar border plan and appointing a fentanyl czar, both of which are things they were doing anyway. So it’s like NBC telling me they’re going to cancel my show unless I do three Closer Looks a week and dress like a dad on a camping trip.”
“President Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reached a deal yesterday to pause U.S.-Mexico tariffs for a month after she finally backed down and agreed to explain to him how tariffs work. [Trump voice] ‘Oh so we pay that? Well that’s not good.'”
“That’s right, President Trump last night agreed to a month-long pause on his plans for Canadian and Mexican goods. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, unless he’s overruled by the actual president.” [Photo of Elon Musk.]
[On Trump posting “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT) regarding his tariff plan] “Not for nothin’, but those were also his vows, so…”
Meyers also squeezed in some jokes about what the rest of the MAGA Republicans are getting up to.
“Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene sent letters yesterday to top leaders at PBS and requested they testify before her committee. Also that they explain this relationship.” [Picture of Bert and Ernie.]
“Florida Governor Ron DeSantis proposed a new holiday yesterday called Second Amendment Summer that would remove sales tax on firearms and ammunition between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Is that a good idea, though? Making weapons easier to get right when Florida is at its most humid?”
Jimmy Kimmel
As happens often in these too-full news days, Jimmy Kimmel started out his Tuesday monologue by noting, “I’m not sure how to even start this show any more,” adding, “It’s like if you walked into a buffet and instead of walking up with your plate to get food, they just launched it all at you at once.”
[On Trump backing off his Canadian trade war after Canada promised to do things they’d already committed to doing six weeks ago] “Next his plan is to force France to give us the Statue of Liberty.”
[On Trump’s continued obsession with turning Canada into the 51st American state] “There are 41 million people living in Canada. There are about the same number we have living in California. California has 54 electoral votes. If Canada also had 54 electoral votes, forget MAGA, our next president will be a kind-hearted lesbian moose.”
[On Robert F. Kennedy Jr advancing to a full Senate vote to become Health and Human Services Director] “After Kennedy got through, the Republicans who voted for him broke into a rousing chorus of ‘For He’s a Jolly Rubella.'”
[On Trump compiling a list of the 5,000 FBI agents and employees who worked on the January 6 investigation] “That seems fine, right? Trump probably wants to make sure they get a nice Christmas bonus or something.”
[On Trump’s intention to abolish the Department of Education] “Eliminating the Department of Education isn’t making America great again. It’s making America Florida.”
[On Trump’s widely debunked lie about USAID providing millions of condoms to Hamas] “Okay, last week it was 50, now it’s 100. How did it go to a hundred in five days? Did Diddy join Hamas?”
[On the skyrocketing price of eggs] “This is gonna be a tough Easter, kids. Get ready to start hunting Swedish meatballs. “
Taylor Tomlinson
The After Midnight host promised her news-weary audience that her Tuesday, TikTok-centric monologue would be “neither breaking nor news.” She did, however, sneak in a dig at Elon Musk right at the end.
[On the supposed trend of “revenge quitting,” where you leave your job suddenly and without notice] “Okay, so quitting. Young people can’t do anything without the media branding it as some new toxic trend. There’s revenge quitting, quiet quitting. If Gen Z dies on the job, Boomers will be like, ‘Okay another lazy life quitter.'”
[On New York City turning to birth control meds to control its rat population] “And yeah, this is annoying. How dare you make me jealous of rats. They get free birth control, they can tolerate lactose. Next you’re gonna tell me they’re giving squirrels free dental, this is bullsh*t.”
“I hear the city’s message loud and clear. If we want free birth control, women have to start being pests. Chew through the drywall, spread disease, take a sh*t in the fridge.”
[On a divorce attorney’s rundown of the occupations least likely to cheat being accountants, pharmacists, and farmers] “Do you think accountants watch this and were like, ‘Hey, I f*ck.'”
“Pharmacists being on the list doesn’t surprise me either. They won’t cheat on you because everyone they meet at work is gross.”
“I mean farmers, big surprise. The guy who doesn’t cheat goes to bed at 6 pm and smells like cow sh*t.”
[And coming back to Musk] “Now that is a rat that needs birth control.”
Jimmy Fallon
The Tonight Show host got a few Trump jokes out of the way before he landed on the topic he really wanted to cover: edible beavers.
[On Trump being the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl] “That story again, nobody invited Trump to their Super Bowl party.”
[On Trump pausing his Mexico and Canada tariffs for 30 days] “That’s nice. He decided not to break up with them until after Valentine’s Day.”
“Trump also announced that the tariffs on China are still in effect, which means the price of clothing will rise. It’s a big deal to everyone except Kanye’s wife.”
[On Trump announcing plans to eliminate the Department of Education] “It’s just like he won fourth grade class president. ‘No more homework and pizza for lunch every day.'”
[On Trump’s plan to have the U.S. government buy and run TikTok] “Yeah, I’m glad we’re saving money on the Department of Education so we can spend it on trick shot videos.”
“RFK Jr has a good shot to be our new health secretary. And that’s pretty much the only shot he has.”
And, because you were patient, here’s the joke about a Minnesota politician introducing a bill to make it legal to eat beavers.
“He also said, ‘Why does everyone keep laughing when I say that?'”
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