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.
Subliminal Hitler-izing
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock that the Donald Trump campaign put out a new political ad this week containing Nazi stuff. After all, Trump himself has referred to certain minorities as “vermin,” has complained of immigrants “poisoning the blood of America,” has openly adopted Nazi imagery to attack “Antifa,” has advocated for internment camps for undocumented immigrants, has praised Hitler for doing “a lot of good things,” and has called literal, torch-toting white supremacists “very fine people.” Plus, he’s been known to keep a book of Hitler’s speeches beside his bed, openly threatens to use the courts to jail his political opponents, has floated shutting down colleges and universities that don’t teach solely right-wing values, has promised to lift any restrictions on police when it comes to defendants’ civil rights, and, oh yeah, tried to lead a no-joke traitorous insurrection to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election.
Still, even the jaded internet was jarred by the release of the video on the official Trump campaign account Monday. Embedded in the usual rundown of Donald Trump’s vision of an America in a second Trump term (terrifying enough), was a mocked-up newspaper clearly extolling the “creation of a Unified Reich.” Yeah. With Trump’s fascist-baiting becoming too blatant for even most both-sides mainstream media outlets to ignore, late-night hosts were right there, too, with Stephen Colbert reacting to the news with an open-mouthed, “Unified yikes.”
“The good news is that Trump wants to bring the country together. The bad news is, that country is Germany in 1933.”
jimmy kimmel
“Apparently MAGA now means Make America Germany Around 1938.”
stephen colbert
“Thats not a dogwhistle, thats a whistle made of dog.”
stephen colbert
“Now listen, I know that sounds terrible… [long pause before moving on to next joke]”
jimmy fallon
[On the Trump camp’s spin that a staffer reposted the video without seeing the Nazi phrase] “Yes, they didn’t see it. It’s a simple case of not-see.”
stephen colbert
“What else does this man have to do for people to see what he is? Grow the mustache?”
jimmy kimmel
“When they saw the ad, even Confederate statues were like, ‘You should take that down.'”
jimmy fallon
“They should know it’s wrong to blame a staffer when you get caught doing something fascist. You’re supposed to blame Sam Alito’s wife.”
stephen colbert
Orange Chicken
Both the prosecution and defense have now rested in Donald Trump’s criminal trial for allegedly committing business fraud to cover up illicit affairs to sway his 2016 election chances. And after the defense’s supposed star witness, lawyer Robert Costello, proved an utter disaster, the time seemed ripe for Trump himself to stride up to the witness stand and follow through on his myriad tough guy hallway promises to set this whole trial straight by testifying under oath.
Yeah, that didn’t happen, as Trump apologists went into pretzel-twisting overdrive to explain why Trump refusing to testify under penalty of perjury was actually not a cowardly betrayal of all that MAGA-pandering bluster and bravado but instead some manner of brilliant, four-dimensional chess move. Naturally, once freed of the scrutiny of the courtroom, Trump suddenly found his tongue once more in time to imply that Colombian-born Judge Juan Merchan was somehow incapable of being fair to him (a racist dogwhistle Trump has blown before after legal proceedings didn’t go his way).
Court reassembles on Tuesday for closing arguments, but The Daily Show‘s Michael Kosta summed up the proceedings thusly: “The Trump trial is coming to and end. And just like Stormy Daniels said, it was over much more quickly than expected.”
“Its just so peculiar that, outside the courtroom with his legal pads full of notes, he just talks and talks and talks. But then if you ask him to walk just a few feet inside the courtroom and to swear to tell the truth under penalty of law, suddenly he’s afraid to speak? I mean, what’s the difference? Is it the fluorescent lighting? I mean, I hate to come to this conclusion, but is it possible that Donald Trump is full of sh*t?”
michael kosta
“Today was Trump’s chance to wake up, snort a line of gas station energy powder, and get on that stand to prove that this is all a big Joe Biden witch hunt. But it is now confirmed that Donald Trump will not testify. That is shocking. Trump is not talking. What happened, did he write himself a check for 130 thousand dollars?”
stephen colbert
“He wanted to take the stand, but then he saw it was three steps without a handrail.”
jimmy fallon
“What? After talking such a big game he’s not testifying? So he’s doing the opposite of what he told us he was gonna do over and over and over again? That’s not the Donald Trump I know, and I played full-contact hockey without a helmet this morning.”
michael kosta
One Down…
Late-night hosts have made plenty of comedy hay out of the first-ever criminal trial of a former POTUS. To be fair, it did involve illegally obtained hush payments to the porn star said POTUS was sleeping with while his third wife recovered from childbirth and included a witness named David Pecker. Still, it’s a bittersweet development for writers rooms everywhere… at least until the next of the multiple Trump criminal trials in the pipeline hits the news.
“Today, testimony ended in the first ever criminal trial of a former President of the United States. Now it may not have been the Trump trial we all wanted. It may not be about his most hideous crimes. But, dammit [takes off glasses for emphasis] at least he farted. They can never take that away from us.”
stephen colbert
“The only supporters Trump has in New York is the army of ass-kissers who fly in from Washington every day to suckle his teats on camera. Today it was Don Jr, Sebastian Gorka, Ronny Jackson, and Joe Piscopo. Not exactly a Beatles reunion.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump reading out a supportive but nondescript quote from a Fox News personality quoting a line from Shakespeare in Love] “I swear to God this trial is making me dumber.”
stephen colbert
[Trump voice] “To quote the porn version of Romeo and Juliet, Boneo and Screwliet: “‘Hark, what light through yonder buttcrack breaks. ‘Tis the pizza man, but how shall we pay him? Uh oh, I’m all out of ducats.'”
stephen colbert
“These are crazy times. Biden campaigned from his basement because of Covid, now Trump might have to do the same because of house arrest.”
jimmy fallon
[After Don Jr tried to discredit prosecution witnesses Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen] “‘And my dad screwed both of them!'”
jimmy kimmel
[On one of the meager number of Trump supporters outside the courthouse who identified himself as “the most successful sex capsule salesman in Idaho, Utah, and Nevada”] “Really makes you feel for the second most successful sex capsule salesman in Idaho, Utah, and Nevada.”
stephen colbert
“After calling just two witnesses this afternoon, Trump’s defense rested. Of course, Trump himself is fully rested.”
stephen colbert
Truth Social and Other Failures
After going public with a deeply suspicious lucrative debut, the stock value of Donald Trump’s Twitter knockoff Truth Social plummeted on Tuesday on news that the company lost more the $300 million in the first quarter of 2024. Late-night hosts took on that sinking ship along with a few other corporate Titanics.
“First of all, ha ha. Second of all, how could they be losing money? Doesn’t every business want to associate their product with the Unified Reich?”
stephen colbert
“Many analysts on Wall Street say they haven’t seen losses like this since every other time Trump has run a business.”
jimmy kimmel
“There a 5-year-old on YouTube making more than that unboxing Go-Gurt.”
stephen colbert
“Truth Social has now lost so much money, they may have to change their name to Red Lobster.”
jimmy kimmel
“The official reason Red Lobster gave for filing [for bankruptcy] was ‘financial and operational challenges.’ Namely, that it’s hard to run a business when your hands are wrapped up in those little rubber bands.”
stephen colbert
[On the company’s money-losing all-you-can-eat shrimp special] “If the bet is on how much Americans can eat, always take the over.”
stephen colbert
“Peloton is barely hanging on. Now when you ride your bike you have to give a motivational pep talk to the instructor.”
jimmy fallon
Crappy Birthday To Rudy
Hosts are still indulging in schadenfreude over former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s misfortune. At the former New York mayor’s 80th birthday party, if you recall, Giuliani, who has been indicted along with other Republican officials for an Arizona fake electors scheme, taunted law enforcement online for not being able to locate him… right before he was served with subpoenas directly between “Happy Birthday” and cake time. With Giuliani already facing $150 million in legal fees and defamation judgments to poll workers he defamed, the fact that he’s now selling Rudy-branded coffee only added to the comedic pile-on. (Jimmy Kimmel even questioned the validity of the supposed veterans charity Rudy’s new venture claims will receive part of the proceeds.)
“Goddamn, I mean, served at his own birthday party. Could you imagine, you know? ‘Hey could someone take a picture of me taunting the Arizona court? Yeah, how about you, man in a suit and a badge at my birthday party that I’ve never seen before?'”
michael kosta
[On Giuliani’s claim that some proceeds from his coffee will go to Call2Action, a veterans charity Kimmel claims does not seem to exist] “It’s as invisible as Rudy Giuliani in front of a mirror.”
jimmy kimmel
“I just can’t believe he called it Rudy’s Coffee and not Ground Zero.”
michael kosta
“Why is it you only see right-wing grifters hawking these these cheap products? Rudy’s coffee, Alex Jones’ supplements, Donald Trump’s… everything.”
michael kosta
Potpourri
[On bags of Pedigree dog food contaminated with metal] “On the bright side, you can now clean up after your dog by using a magnet.”
jimmy fallon
[On the Trump team condemning The Apprentice, an unflattering film about 1980’s Donald Trump] “But if it gets nominated for an Oscar he’ll start saying he wrote it.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Open AI hiring a Scarlett Johansson soundalike after she turned the company down] “This is not acceptable. Open AI should be punished for attempting to steal ScarJo’s voice. In fact, from now on they should have to use an off-putting voice. Like my uncle Dan who’s been smoking his whole life.”
michael kosta
[On a homeowner discovering a bundle of old cocaine buried in his yard] “Growing up my family didn’t have a lot of money so we could only afford above-ground cocaine.”
jimmy fallon
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Note: Trump’s trial was about attempting to sway the 2016 campaign, not the 2020.