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.
Trump Roast
Jury selection might seem like the easy part of one’s criminal trial for falsifying records over an affair with a porn star. But for Donald Trump, on trial for some 32 felony counts of doing just that, Day 2 of his criminal trial was more like a gauntlet of second-hand personal abuse thanks to his lawyers reading out every mocking meme, elaborate insult, or straight-up “F**k You, Donald” potential jurors ever posted on their various social media accounts.
As noted by reporters and documented by sketch artists attending the no-camera-allowed proceedings, Trump did get some respite at times by falling asleep once again for brief periods. But when awake, the defendant was forced to sit and stew (and at one point get scolded by Judge Juan Merchan for addressing a potential juror directly) while candidate after candidate was dismissed for having posted, for example, side-by-side photos of Trump and former President Barack Obama with the caption, “I don’t think this is what they meant by Orange Is the New Black.” As The Daily Show‘s Dulcé Sloan responded, “Daaaaammmn. Yo, this court is roasting Donald Trump. I thought this was a courthouse, not a high school cafeteria.”
“One of the possible jurors who made it through the vetting yesterday said his radio habits included ‘listening to whatever was on while he was in the shower.’ But after he hears details of Trump’s sex life, I’m guessing he’ll be listening to a toaster in the bathtub.”
stephen colbert
[After one juror was excused due to worries about dog care] “So people who think about their dogs too much get dismissed? A jury with no white people? How is that fair to Trump?”
dulcé sloan
“Can you imagine having all your old social media posts about Trump read aloud while he is sitting right in front of you? It might be my version of heaven, but…”
jimmy kimmel
“But he’s got thick skin. He’s basically a hunk of beef jerky with layer of bronzer.”
stephen colbert
“One potential juror was an older woman who said she believed that no one was above the law. And Trump’s lawyers were like, ‘Get her out of here right now.'”
jimmy kimmel
[On the difficulty in finding jurors] “I wouldn’t blame them. After all, the job description reads, Wanted: impartial juror, 4 days a week, $40/day. Benefits include free wi-fi and unlimited death threats.”
stephen colbert
Defining Your Squirms
For the record, Trump is not on trial for paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels—as manipulative media shorthand and hacky jokes would have you believe—but for falsifying business documents in order to cover up a potentially damaging scandal during an election. it’s an important distinction, if for no other reason than finding ways to say “Donald Trump paid hush money to a porn star” as many times as possible in your monologue.
“Before we get into Trump’s trial, let’s be clear about which trial this is. Is it the classified documents trial? No. The January 6 trial? No.The Georgia RICO trial? No. The sexual assault/defamation trial? No. The real estate trial? No. It’s the porn-money-love-sex-music trial.”
Dulcé sloan
“And the truth is, paying a woman to keep her quiet about having sex with you while your wife is at home with your newborn baby isn’t illegal. What’s illegal is falsifying records to make it a business expense, which he made so his supporters wouldn’t find out he’s a lying, cheating scumbag. But the joke is on Trump because it turns out his supporters don’t care that he’s a lying, cheating scumbag. He could have saved himself a whole trial and 130 grand.”
jimmy kimmel
“As we watch the proceedings we are reminded that, while the wheels of justice may turn slowly, a panel of impartial citizen jurors will do the indispensable public service of listening to testimony about Donald Trump’s mushroom dong.”
stephen colbert
“Now to be clear, Trump is not on trial for sleeping with the porn star or paying her hush money. He’s on trial because he allegedly falsified business documents to cover up the hush money which could be construed as an unreported campaign expense. [Deep breath] This is the most complicated plot a porn star has ever been involved in.”
Dulcé sloan
[After a Newsmax anchor dismissed Trump’s offense as a mere “error in paperwork”] “What, you never accidentally forgot to check a box, or keep your pants on when a porn star comes to your hotel room?”
jimmy kimmel
Abusing Excusing
Having failed to stall or dismiss this criminal trial, Donald Trump and his legal team have moved onto phase two of their distraction plan by flooding Judge Merchan with requests for Trump to miss several of his mandatory court appearances. The proffered excuses range from simply not wanting to appear on Wednesdays to wanting to travel to the site of yet another of his many trials. But the one excuse that’s got the right-wing hypocrisy-sphere riled up the most is Trump’s claim that he’d be broken up to miss the high school graduation of son Barron. For the record, Trump has attended virtually none of his five children’s graduations, the date of the graduation in question is one where court is unlikely to be in session, and Judge Merchan has yet to rule one way or another. Which sort of makes all the Trump camp’s attacks on Judge Merchan as “pure evil” and “heartless” ring a bit hollow.
[On Trump not being able to attend Supreme Court arguments about his claim of total presidential immunity] “Thats gotta be disappointing for Trump, because he really wanted to be down there in Washington with the justices that he appointed. ‘Hey Gorsuch, [draws finger over throat] I’m just saying that your neck looks really itchy. And my finger is a knife and my neck is your neck.'”
stephen colbert
“Donald Trump is about as bummed out about potentially missing this high school graduation as he was about missing Vietnam.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump’s online complaint about who will tell Barron about missing graduation] “You want someone to explain to your son for you why you cant be at his graduation? Pick me! Pick me!”
dulcé sloan
“I don’t blame him for wanting someone else to do that. ‘Son, you know how right after you were born, I cheated on your mom with a porn star? Oh, you didn’t know that? You wanna be on my jury?'”
stephen colbert
“What? No Wednesdays? There’s no possible better day for a porn star trial than hump day!”
stephen colbert
Don Snoreleone
Donald Trump fell asleep sitting up for the second day in a row at this criminal trial.
“Yesterday, Trump fell asleep during the proceedings. He took a little white power nap. But today, he was sharp, focused… and he fell asleep again.”
stephen colbert
“The Trump campaign also pushed back on reports that he fell asleep in court yesterday. He said that was fake snooze.”
jimmy kimmel
[On court sketches of the sleeping Trump] “Well, I think we found the new mascot for Celestial Seasonings Sleepycrime Tea.”
stephen colbert
“In a totally unrelated story, there’s a national Adderall shortage.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“It is Day 2 of Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial, what many are calling the trial of what feels like a century.”
stephen colbert
“We’ve got so much to talk about tonight. Everybody’s trying to get out of the Trump trial, Jordan Klepper is at the courthouse, and John Leguizamo will tell politicians how to round up Latinos. Oh, but not like that. No, no, no, no, no, not like that.”
Dulcé sloan
[On the meager turnout of Trump supporters outside the Manhattan courthouse] “Okay that crowd is… whelming.”
stephen colbert
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