Missed Tuesday’s late-night monologues? We’ve got you covered with our round-up of the night’s best laughs from across the dial.
Presidential Debate 2: The Debatening
With the second presidential debate wrapping up right before late-night shows’ traditional airtimes, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert took to the air live with their post-debate rapid response comedy on Tuesday. (Seth Meyers is getting an entire prime time special Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET to give his impressions, but that’s a whole 24 hours to prepare material, so we’re calling “cheater, cheater, pumpkin-eater” on that one.)
Naturally, as Stewart pointed out, calling this the second debate is something of a misnomer, since the Democrats did some recasting after President Joe Biden’s widely derided performance in the first contest against Donald Trump, where one old man showing his age while telling the truth was deemed disqualifying next to another old man lying his racist ass off with babbling impunity.
But what’s past is traumatizing past. So how did newly crowned and surging Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris do in what The Daily Show termed the presidential debate “with 50% less old man?” Well, Stewart, when not playing the same Mr. Creosote clip of the late, great Terry Jones projectile vomiting into a bucket (mainly in response to war criminal Dick Cheney jumping onto Team Harris, but it still applies), marveled at the contrast. “Holy sh*t. She crushed that,” Stewart said of Harris’ ice-cold, passionately assassin-like takedown of Trump’s claim that “a majority of people” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, “This is like one of those Groundhog Day movies where you get to go back and fix the bad way that something happened earlier to the good way.”
Colbert was even more delighted at how badly things went for Donald Trump, who visibly fumed at being fact-checked over the beyond-disgusting GOP racist lie that Ohio immigrants are eating people’s pets. Noting how Harris’ strategy had been reported as wanting to “rattle Donald Trump’s cage” going into the debate, Colbert stated, “And now that it’s over, they’re still looking for pieces of his cage in low orbit,” adding, “She’s going to be picking his cage out of her poop.”
“It was a much better debate than the last debate. This was like in The Lion King when Simba came back to avenge Mufasa.”
jimmy kimmel
“Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off tonight in their first and only scheduled presidential debate. And if it went anything like the last one, that’s probably why you’re still awake.”
seth meyers
[On Harris’ reaction to Trump attacking her father as “a Marxist”] “Oh, sh*t. She’s about to be like [mimes taking off earrings], ‘Motherf**ker, let’s do this.'”
jon stewart
“‘She’s a Marxist. It’s her, Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo, the most terrible Marxist of all. It’s horrible how they raised the price on everything. Nobody can even afford Duck Soup.'”
stephen colbert
“She’s about to open up a can of Ass Kapital on Donald Trump.”
Jon Stewart
“Harris got under his skin like she was stuffing it with butter and rosemary.”
stephen colbert
“Kamala was pushing his buttons like a 12-year-old playing Fortnite.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trumps’ visibly unenthusiastic return of Harris’ pre-debate handshake] “What an incredible display of the awkward tension that happens when your son is dating a bi-racial girl and you meet her parents for the first time.”
jon stewart
“According to ABC News, candidates were not allowed to interact with their staff during commercial breaks in tonight’s presidential debate. Said Trump [flashes map of Russia], ‘Oh, it’s like 4 a.m. there anyway.'”
seth meyers
“It was like watching the Lorax debate the Grinch tonight.”
jimmy kimmel
“He was so nonsensical that she looked at him the way a parent looks at a kid giving a presentation on why they should be allowed to get a pet tiger.”
stephen colbert
[After Trump responded to Harris’ detailed economic plans with the racist lie about foreign countries emptying “insane asylums” to flood America with immigrants] “Ladies and gentlemen. I just want to say after surviving the PTSD of the last presidential debate, how unbelievably refreshing it is to go back to the same old… Nobody’s gonna answer any f**king questions! This is unbelievable! We’re back—America is back!”
jon stewart
[After Harris hammered home that Donald Trump left us in historically worse shape with regard to the economy, public health, and the state of our democracy] “Honestly, you had me at ‘Donald Trump left us.'”
stephen colbert
“Usually when Donald Trump gets a spanking from a woman it’s with a Forbes magazine.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump’s claim that his Covid response proved his administration did things “nobody thought possible”] ‘That is actually true. Before Trump, no one thought it was possible to inject bleach.”
stephen colbert
[After ABC moderator Linsey Davis finally—looking at you Jake Tapper and Dana Bash—fact-checked Donald Trump on his oft-repeated bullsh*t that abortion providers kill babies after they’re born] “Follow-up question—can a moderator win a debate?”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s claim that everyone wanted Roe v. Wade overturned] “John Stewart from the I Was Watching This Live Times-Picayune. Uh, yeah, what you just said, that’s actually insanely false.”
jon Stewart
[On Trump claiming to be “a leader on fertilization,” despite his anti-abortion crusade endangering IVF access in states with post-Roe abortion bans] “‘Oh, I have been a leader on fertilization. In fact, I have been called a giant pile of fertilizer.'”
stephen colbert
“‘I’ve got babies—like, four, five babies, with only one dud in the group. Even the best of us can end up with an Eric, it’s very sad.'”
stephen colbert
[On Trump quickly attempting to change the subject after Harris’ takedown of his abortion lies] “Student loan smoke bomb! Poof!”
jon stewart
[After Harris claimed people are leaving Trump rallies early] “The eagle has landed! She has attacked what is Donald Trump’s most cherished family members—his rally crowds.”
jon stewart
“Here’s what I’d like you to do right now. I want you to imagine we’ve never heard of Donald Trump before. And the first time you’ve ever seen him was during tonight’s debate. What would your reaction be? You’d be shocked. The Republican Party would have to close their headquarters and turn them into a Spirit Halloween store.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Harris saying America needs to “turn the page” on Trump] “Actually, turning the page seems kind of mild. I’d say burn the book, but that’s more of his thing.”
stephen colbert
“Harris tried to cast Trump as a relic of the past. While Trump thinks relic is a condiment he puts on his hot dogs.”
jimmy fallon
“She was like, ‘Trust me, after the last four years, I know a relic when I see one.'”
jimmy fallon
[After Trump cited the likes of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Jesse Watters’ opinion that him saying there were “very good people on both sides” of a neo-Nazi rally in Charlotesville] “‘Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Skeletor, Darth Vader, Thanos, that little floatin’ green guy who eats all the hot dogs in Ghostbusters. All of them debunked it. We miss you Slimer.'”
stephen colbert
[When Trump, after being confronted by Muir with his own recent on-the-record quotes about how he lost the 2020 election, asked, “I said that?”] “Okay, but you can’t believe a thing I say, I’m crazy, everybody knows that. I’m the Hannibal Lecter whale guy. Immigrants are taking our cats and giving them operations to turn them into dogs and then eating the dogs. Whale!'”
stephen colbert
[On Trump rebutting Harris’ claim that world leaders are laughing at him by citing praise from Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán] “It’s not fantastic when your character witness is an Eastern European strongman. ‘Mussolini loves me, Stalin, Gargamel, the guy from Minions movies, Captain Hook. Captain Hook loves me, he’s gonna get that Peter Pan and that Tinkerbell, I tell you.'”
stephen colbert
[After Harris, citing Trump’s servile worship of another dictator, claimed Vladmir Putin would “eat [his] lunch”] “Don’t do it, Vlad! I know he looks crispy and salty, but he’ll back up on you like a bad clam.”
stephen colbert
[When Davis asked Trump if, after nearly a decade of trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he had a plan to replace it, with Trump responding, “I have the concept of a plan”] “Spoken like every dad when they have the kids for the weekend.”
stephen colbert
“Joe Biden is gonna be so happy tomorrow when he wakes up and watches this.”
jimmy kimmel
“Harris was on the right, Trump was on the left, and Biden was at home wondering, Where do I know these guys from?”
jimmy fallon
[After Trump once more disclaimed responsibility for inciting his followers to attack the Capitol] “And this is it, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t know if this debate’s going to change anything, I really don’t. People are awfully set in the manner that they view these proceedings. What I think is a home run answer for one candidate, someone else views as a dodge or a lie or any of those other things. In some ways, it doesn’t matter what they say any more. But one thing will always be true and it is the quality of the former President I respect the least. Whenever he is cornered and forced to face even the smallest of consequences for his own mendacity ans scheming, he reverts to the greatest refuge of scoundrels. As Shaggy would say, ‘It wasn’t me! I did nothign wrong, I just showed up. They’re the ones who went crazy.’ This man, who constantly professes to be your champion, who says they’re gonna have to go through him to get to you will always, when the boat is going down, be the first one into the lifeboats. Because in that moment, he will always say the same thing. ‘I didn’t know anything about it, I was just told to show up for a cruise!’ Even though everybody knows he was the f**king captain.”
jon stewart
If You’re Going to Be Racist, at Least Be Original (Also, Don’t Be Racist)
Proliferating as it did on the internet like bacteria on unrefrigerated mayonnaise, let’s take another look at the Republicans’ pre-debate pitch to their most squirmy bigot base.
Everybody had that one little punk kid in grade school who told you that the new [insert ethnic group new to the area] restaurant was found to have a freezer full of neighborhood pets that they were serving to unsuspecting customers. Well, that little creep is now the GOP presidential candidate for the third time, and his charmless Vice Presidential pick, J.D. Vance appears to be the source for this deeply offensive and thoroughly unoriginal bigotry, planting Twitter rumors that his Ohio office has been swarmed by totally credible sources that Springfield, Ohio’s immigrant community is roaming the streets in bibs looking to devour Fido. Fellow now-grown playground bigots like Ted Cruz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others have, naturally, seized upon Vance’s garbage along with Trump, all but guaranteeing their similarly racist supporters will abuse and defame an entire immigrant community.
[After Trump repeated the racist lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs, a rumor spread by his Vice Presidential pick] [Checks watch] “Let’s call it: Time of crazy, 9:31 p.m.”
stephen colbert
[After Trump immediately pivots from crowd size to the whole pet-eating thing] “[Long pause] What the f**k? ‘I’ve got these unbelievable rallies, people don’t leave—EATING DOGS!!!!'”
jon stewart
[After Trump’s team complained about their candidate’s racist pet-eating lie being fact-checked during the debate] “I can imagine that his campaign is pretty upset. Because while migrants might not be eating dogs, with his debate performance tonight, trump did eat a Philly turd steak.”
stephen colbert
[On an A.I. meme of Trump running away from two shirtless Black men, two terrified kittens clutched in his arms] “I can imagine Trump grabbing two pussies at once, I just can’t imagine him running.”
jimmy kimmel
[After moderator David Muir actually live fact-checked Trump’s racist lie—again, take some notes, Tapper and Bash—causing Trump to claim he saw people saying it on TV] “I saw on television, no, I saw on television—it’s crazy what they’re doing. On television, there’s this one town where they make the dogs do all the work. They are the police, the fire department, everything. Little puppies, they’ve got these little puppies folks, no I saw it. They call them the Paw Patrol and their boss is a little boy.'”
stephen colbert
“He sees people on television. You know what else he sees on television, he sees Steve Harvey. He sees families having feuds. ‘These feuds would never happen if I was president, that I can tell you.’”
jimmy kimmel
[On Vance’s not-at-all apology that he was only repeating what anonymous constituent calls were telling him (and urging Republicans to keep circulating his lie)] “Oh, he’s getting calls. I didn’t know he was getting calls, now it makes sense. I guess all you have to do to get J.D. Vance to start spreading crazy things about is to make calls. This by the way is the direct line to his office [flashes graphic], (202) 224-3353. Whatever you do, do not call that number to tell J.D. Vance that [flashes graphic] rainbow sprinkles at Baskin-Robbins turned your kids gay, okay?”
jimmy kimmel
And Some More J.D. Vance Jokes
Just because. (Note, we’d call this dog-piling on the embattled Vice Presidential candidate, but, you know.)
“In a new interview, film director Ron Howard, who directed the movie adaptation of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy said he does not support former President Trump. ‘Also, could you describe me as ‘Apollo 13 director’ instead?'”
seth meyers
“Just like the previous debate, there was no audience. Yup, they were speaking to a totally silent, empty room, or as J.D. Vance calls that, a rally.”
jimmy fallon
“The Taliban recently released a new 114-page manifesto of laws, including a ban on women’s voices in public. ‘But there’s some bad stuff in there, too,’ said J.D. Vance.”
seth meyers
Potpourri
“How is it possible that half of this country thinks that it’s a good idea to give the guy who tried to overthrow our government another chance to run our government. If someone poisoned all the jalapeño poppers at TGI Fridays, you wouldn’t interview him to be the chef.”
jimmy kimmel
[On “one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most acclaimed former lawyers Alan Dershowitz announcing he’s leaving the Democratic Party] [In a monotone] “No, wait, don’t go.”
jon stewart
“Dick Cheney isn’t voting for Kamala Harris because he agrees with her on the issues. He’s voting for her because there’s a rhinoceros charging and she has the tranquilizer gun.”
jimmy kimmel
“In a new interview, former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley defensed her support of former President Trump and said, ‘We can either vote based on style or we can vote on substance.’ All right, no one’s voting for him on style. He looks like he’s wearing two skydancers from a used car lot.”
seth meyers
“New Jersey residents are complaining that they can smell a foul odor that is reminiscent of cat urine, which sanitation officials assured them was just Staten Island marking its territory.”
seth meyers
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