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.
Meeting of the Whines
For two rich white guys forcing their egomaniacal visions for a white supremacist dystopian U.S. on the reg, Elon Musk and Donald Trump sure do like to complain. That’s one of the main takeaways from Musk’s highly hyped online partisan sit-down with Trump on Monday, a glitch-filled (both on Musk’s Twitter X and in Trump’s word-slurring, short-circuiting brain) GOP propaganda-thon that could only win over undecided voters whose one issue remains “Is there a candidate out there both bigoted and incoherent enough to truly appeal to my inner hateful maniac?”
In the disastrous interview itself, Trump complained that Vice President and surging Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was taking credit for the one Trump policy idea that doesn’t appear to come straight from a dictator’s dream journal. (That said, Trump’s touted “no tax on tips” idea is, according to many experts, a voter-baiting slogan in search of a sound economic policy, while Harris’ at least improves upon it.) He also did some suspiciously dated slang-bragging about standing up to his authoritarian hero Vladimir Putin, unnervingly lusted after a drawing of Kamala Harris, and laid out a few more policy proposals barely decipherable through a speech pattern more than one host likened to various lisping cartoon characters.
As for Musk, the fascist-friendly bro-down’s embarrassing technical delays (the interview went up over 40 minutes late) saw the homesick apartheid baby crying about an alleged, immediately debunked by Twitter insiders denial-of-service attack on his sinking social media site. You know, since it must have been that pesky Deep State’s fault rather than the fact Musk has fired all of the people at Twitter who actually know how anything works and oversees not one but two companies whose vehicles routinely burst into unexpected fireballs.
“But here’s the thing about Trump doing anything on Twitter now. It just reminds people of the awful reason he was banned to begin with. It’s like getting a party invitation that says, ‘Come celebrate! When? Tuesday! Where? Mason Park! Why? Because Im finally allowed within 200 yards of a school again!'”
stephen colbert
“Thats right, only the Deep State could make Elon Musk’s website suck. Just like they’re to blame for making his cars look like a DeLorean whose mom smoked during pregnancy.”
Desi Lydic
“But if there’s a Deep State trying to silence Donald Trump, you suck at your job, okay? There is no one more un-silent than Donald Trump right now. Hey, Deep State, look at me. Look at me. Do better.”
desi lydic
“It’s nice to know the guy who’s building self-driving cars and spaceships hasn’t quite figured out how to broadcast a phone call.”
jimmy fallon
[On Musk’s DDoS claim, which Twitter insiders speculated was “99 percent fake”] “Now if that sounds made up to you… good ear.”
stephen colbert
“Yep, technical issues and a 40-minute delay. On the bright side, Trump was just endorsed by Spirit Airlines.”
jimmy fallon
[As Trump] “‘Hey there, lying is my thing, buddy. No no, uh uh, I’ve worked long and hard… Stay in your lane, Elon. Oh wait, you can’t because you’re in a self-driving Tesla. Boom! Your roasted. By your Tesla. It’s on fire.'”
stephen colbert
“He sounds like a sugared-up kid on Halloween who wont take off his plastic vampire teeth.”
seth meyers
“I know the guy’s big on slurs but this is next level.”
desi lydic
[On Musk’s post-interview invitation to Harris for a similar experience] “Madame Vice President, you should do it. Do not pass up this rare opportunity to wait for an hour and then sound like Elmer Fudd.”
stephen colbert
“To be fair, Kamala did copy Trump’s no tax on tips idea, which first time a woman got credit for repeating a man’s idea.”
desi lydic
“And she didn’t stop there. Kamala completely ripped off his idea to lead in the polls by three points against a rapidly deteriorating candidate. That was his thing.”
Desi lydic
“Did Sylvester Trump over here just say he wanted to close the Department of Education? Think this through, Trump. Without schools, where are you gonna ban books from?
Desi lydic
Ew… Just, Ew
In the interview, Trump did grudgingly express one sliver of admiration—for how hot he thinks his female opponent is. Referring to Vice President Harris’ drawn portrait on the cover of this week’s Time, Trump told Musk that Harris “looks like the most beautiful actress who ever lived” and compared Harris to his wife, Melania. As Desi Lydic taunted, “Wooo, somebody’s got a crush,” before speculating that the adjudicated sex offender and serial cheater pored over that issue looking for the centerfold. Again, ew.
“I think we finally found the one thing Trump is incapable of lying about. If he thinks someone is hot, he’ll say they’re hot. He’ll lie about winning an election, but he has deep respect for the sanctity of bangability.”
desi lydic
[On the Melania comparison] “‘Look what I’m saying is that I hate this woman with every fiber of my being, reminds me’… You know where I’m going. You’re all down the block waiting for the punchline going, ‘When’s he gonna get here?'”
stephen colbert
Party On, Vlad
Another takeaway from the Musk-Trump meeting of the, let’s call them minds, was that Donald Trump talks like a hungry middle schooler trying to look cool by quoting that movie everybody’s already tired of. In boasting of a totally not made up staredown with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump told Musk that his warning about the Russian invasion of Ukraine involved Putin waving aside Trump’s admonition with a flippant, “No way,” to which Trump, naturally, responded, “Way.”
Now some might scoff at the very notion that Donald Trump—who has habitually and slavishly licked Daddy Vlad’s boots, along with those of numerous other world dictators—would ever have dared tell Putin what to do. Others may, instead, focus on the idea that said fictitious defiance took the form of a certain 1992 comedy film’s long worn-out catchphrase. Either way, the story was met with the late-night equivalent of “asphinhtersayswhat?”
“Apparently Trump and Putin talk to each other like Wayne and Garth.”
jimmy fallon
“It’s like Wayne’s World, except the wigs have gotten a lot worse.”
desi lydic
“First of all that didn’t happen. Second, was Putin threatening to invade Ukraine or put an ice cube down your shirt?”
seth meyers
Once a Wingman, Always a Wingman
Donald Trump rented Jeffrey Epstein’s plane last week. That might sound odd, since infamous sex trafficker and longtime Trump buddy Epstein died under completely not suspicious circumstances while in custody awaiting trial in 2019. And yet, reports emerged that, after Trump’s own Boeing jet suffered engine problems, his campaign rented a smaller plane once owned by Epstein.
Now, this wasn’t the famed “Lolita Express,” on which Epstein used to fly high-profile associates like Trump and current third-party bear-molester Robert F. Kennedy Jr to his private underage sex island. (That plane was destroyed in the wake of Epstein’s crimes coming to light, presumably with an exorcist present.) But still, it was just another unforced error from the floundering Trump campaign, one which only served to remind everybody of the queasy connection between the Republican candidate for president and one of the most disgusting creeps of all time. At least if Stephen Colbert has anything to say about the matter.
“Wow. Trump and Epstein. If that plane could talk, it would be found dead in its jail cell.”
stephen colbert
“Finding out that they’d rented the plane of one of Trump’s most notorious pedophile buddies has thrown the Trump team into a full panic mode. Which is why they’ve released a statement claiming that ‘the campaign had absolutely no idea that the aircraft they rented was previously owned by Mr. Epstein.’ So now they’re ditching Epstein’s plane and Trump will be traveling to all future events in O.J. Simpson’s hot air balloon.”
stephen colbert
“Whaaaa?? A Boeing had a mechanical issue? You could knock me over with a feather—which is also how you can you pop out one of their doors.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“Dunkin’ has begun offering a limited edition spiked pumpkin spice latte, which is six percent alcohol by volume. ‘Big deal, I’ve been making those for years,’ said teachers.”
Seth meyers
[On former President Obama’s summer playlist including Blackstreet’s “No Diggity”] “Very fitting, because you’ll remember that under his administration this country had historically low rates of diggity.”
stephen colbert
“Vice President Harris is now the betting favorite to win the 2024 presidential election. And it’s all thanks to her new campaign strategy, letting Trump talk.”
jimmy fallon
“Authorities in the Czech Republic are searching for a kangaroo that escaped from a prison. And if you’re wondering what a kangaroo was doing in prison—10 years for insurance fraud.”
seth meyers
[On Hurricane Ernesto bearing down on the U.S. Virgin Islands] “What a name, Ernesto? That doesn’t sound so much like a hurricane to me. Sounds like the name of an attentive lover… I think by this time tomorrow, those Islands may no longer be Virgin.”
Jimmy kimmel live Guest host jeff goldblum
“ABC just unveiled the 24 men who will be on the new season of The Golden Bachelorette. It doesn’t start for a few months, so by then it might be narrowed down to 20 men.”
jimmy fallon
“Disney has announced it will add two lounge areas to Disney World that will serve alcohol, including a Pirates of the Caribbean tavern. It will even feature Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, even though Disney didn’t ask him.”
seth meyers
“Netflix is opening up an in-person Squid Game experience in new York City. That’s right, Squid Game. It’s like I always say, strike when the iron is ice cold.”
jimmy fallon
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