Missed Wednesday’s late-night monologues? We’ve got you covered with our round-up of the night’s best laughs from across the dial.
This Is Sad, Even for Trump
As Jon Stewart put it in wrapping up last night’s Daily Show rundown of the crushing debacle that was Donald Trump’s debate performance, the one certainty in current American politics is that Donald Trump will do everything in his fading powers to divert blame from himself. After Vice President Kamala Harris left the conspiracy-mongering Trump grimacing his way back to the safety of Fox News, the former President did just that, and more. “You can also tell Donald Trump was the loser because he did all the things losers do when they lose,” surmised Wednesday anchor in the Daily Show relay, Jordan Klepper, before playing clips of a “pathetic, desperate” Trump spinning to anyone who’d listen.
Trump complained about the moderators, who had the gall to actually fact-check Trump’s most egregious lies. He whined about the composed and unfazed Harris, who he claimed must have been cheating, since she appeared to have a grasp of the actual issues being asked about. He put his brazen self-delusion on public display by sweatily telling everyone he won the debate, despite everyone actually having eyes and ears. And Trump also played the “Oh yeah? Who even cares?” card when confronted with the body blow that a certain mega-celebrity was throwing her weight—and her famously loyal and massive fanbase—behind Harris. As late-night hosts heaped ridicule on Trump en masse, one can only imagine Trump making excuses to his TV.
[On Trump “complaining about the refs” by attacking ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis] “Yeah man, they were correcting you because of the things you were saying. That’s barely fact-checking. The moderators were reacting like normal human beings react when you hear the craziest sh*t you’ve ever heard. If you were at a cocktail party and your friend said, ‘Trans immigrants are eating dogs in Ohio!,’ you would say, ‘What the f**k are you talking about, Stu? No, they aren’t.’ You wouldn’t be like, ‘Okay, let’s move on to foreign policy.'”
jordan klepper
“Former President Trump said today that ABC should have their broadcast license taken away after the debate. Hey, if they didn’t lose it after Wife Swap, they ain’t ever losing it.”
seth meyers
“This morning Trump said the debate was rigged and that ABC should be shut down for fact-checking him, but that he still thought he did great. Then ABC fact-checked him again and said, ‘You did not.'”
jimmy fallon
[On Trump speculating that Kamala Harris must have gotten the debate questions ahead of time because she actually could put together coherent answers] “You think she was cheating because she seemed familiar with the questions? It’s a presidential debate. They always ask the same questions. It’s like being suspicious that someone knows all the words to ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.’ ‘How will you fix the economy?’ ‘What’s your stance on abortion?’ ‘Do you promise not to overthrow the government?’ Standard, boilerplate debate questions.”
jordan klepper
[On Trump feverishly citing unsourced “polls” claiming he’d won the debate by Putin-sized, not-at-all ludicrous margins] “Wow! Those certainly were numbers! Is this what Trump did during his debate prep, memorize all the numbers between 70 and 98?”
jordan klepper
“‘The polls are showing we won by numbers you’ve never even heard of. We got smeventeen percent, one hundred didgeridoo, and of course, this is my favorite number, 76 trombones. It was—it was a big parade.'”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s Baghdad Bob-style self-propaganda] “I don’t know if it was your best debate, but it was definitely mine.”
jimmy kimmel
“Imagine if Donald Trump spent all that energy on doing things correctly instead of pretending he did things correctly. I mean, if he had worked harder preparing for the debate, maybe he wouldn’t have had to pretend he won the debate. If he had worked harder to win in 2020, maybe he wouldn’t have had to pretend the election was rigged. And if he had worked harder on January 6, maybe he would have overthrown the government and wouldn’t have to be debating in the first place. It’s called work ethic, Donald, come on!”
jordan klepper
[After Trump, immediately challenged to a second debate by the Harris camp, dodged by claiming that only a losing fighter asks for a rematch] “Okay. Or, counterpoint, she tore out your heart, showed it to you while it was still beating, and ate it on national television, and now she would like seconds.”
stephen colbert
[Continuing the comparison, Trump claimed “the guy that won” never asks for a rematch”] “Yeah, well ‘the guy that won’ isn’t a guy. The guy that won is a woman. A woman who handed you your big orange ass so brutally, you’re scared to face her again.”
jimmy kimmel
Mopping Up the Debate-Blood
Late-night hosts were not swayed by Trump’s punch-drunk denialism, nor were they, as a group, among the “undecided” focus group even Fox News couldn’t keep from raising their hands for Harris. Even After Midnight‘s Taylor Tomlinson (making her LateNighter monologues round-up debut) took a few minutes at the top of the comedy game show to take some whacks at the Donald Trump piñata. Is it wrong to kick a twice-impeached adjudicated rapist when he’s down? That’s between late-night comics and their comic gods.
“It’s difficult to watch debates like these where one person is spreading alarming lies and all the headlines are like, ‘Trump and Harris Clash on Issues.'”
taylor tomlinson
“If Kamala had said, ‘Let’s give everyone a hundred dollars,’ and then Trump responded, ‘I’m gonna fill every American home with locusts,’ the headlines would be, like, ‘Candidates Present Different Visions for the Future.'”
taylor tomlinson
“What a smackdown, Harris ran Trump over with a truck. It was so bad, RFK Jr scooped him up and put Trump in his roadkill freezer.”
stephen colbert
“Afterward, Trump asked how he did with his undecided voters, and his staff said, ‘Well, they’re not undecided any more…'”
jimmy fallon
[On the CNN poll noting that nearly a quarter of Trump voters were reconsidering their vote after the debate] “Okay, reconsidering is good, but you’re so close to having your daughter unblock you on Facebook.”
stephen colbert
“We are still buzzing after the Lincoln-Dumbass debate last night.”
jimmy kimmel
“I do feel bad for all the undecided voters watching this debate because, how embarrassing for you. When it’s lunchtime, are you like, ‘Hmm, I could eat a sandwich or I could just chew on some broken glass.'”
Taylor Tomlinson
“It was not a good night for Trump. In terms of personal tragedies for him, I’d put it somewhere between losing the 2020 election and the day Fox News started letting female anchors wear pants.”
jordan klepper
“A man in Idaho broke a world record by punching 327 balloons in one minute. Then Trump broke that record at his post-debate party.”
jimmy fallon
[After Trump’s widely derided claim to have “concepts of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act—and an eight-year montage of him kicking the same can down the road] “No one puts the ‘con’ in concepts like Donald Trump.”
jimmy kimmel
“Transgender illegal alien prison surgeries. He’s just doing some batsh*t conservative Mad Libs. ‘Let’s see, Kamala Harris wants to [verb], illegal gay marriage [noun], Hunter Biden’s laptop.'”
taylor tomlinson
“Couldn’t have gone much better that it did for Kamala Harris, she baited him masterfully. I don’t think I’ve seen master-baiting like that on television.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Harris’ perpetually amused facial reactions to Trump making an ass of himself/the GOP] “Pretty cool for Trump, I think it’s the first time in his life he’s managed to make a woman smile.”
taylor tomlinson
“We haven’t seen a debate performance that bad since, well, the last debate.”
jimmy fallon
“Yeah, it wasn’t Trump’s best night. About an hour in, even Vladimir Putin was like, ‘Uh, let’s see what’s on Nyetflix.’
jimmy fallon
Et Tu, Taylor?
Perhaps the most laughable deflection coming from the Trump camp post-debate was their collective damage control in response to the swiftly following news that none other than Taylor Swift was endorsing Kamala Harris. Appearing on Fox News, Trump claimed that he didn’t even care and that he never wanted to go out with Taylor anyway. Meanwhile, right-wing pundits derided the idea that a mere singer could have anything worthwhile to say about who to vote, for as if Donald Trump didn’t routinely wheel out musical semi-celebrities like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent like they were vaunted presidential scholars. As they say, denial ain’t just a defensive psychological response to protect oneself from devastating, potentially career-scuttling bad news—in Egypt.
“Former President Trump gave the closing statement at last night’s debate—or so he thought.”
seth meyers
“Last night, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took to the debate stage to make their cases to Taylor Alison Swift. And whoever else happened to be watching.”
jordan klepper
“After Taylor Swift officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Harris campaign sent an email today that asked voters to join Taylor Swift and donate $25. [Shows Taylor Swift concert prices] Said Swifties, ‘We don’t have any more money.'”
seth meyers
[After Swift signed off her endorsement of Harris with a swipe at J.D. Vance, referring to herself as “Childless Cat Lady“] “Then Taylor looked at Travis and said, ‘Now that’s how you spike the ball.'”
jimmy fallon
“Meow! She is dragging J.D. Vance. I hear he’s also the inspiration for her next album, The Tortured Couch-Humper’s Department.”
stephen colbert
“Good work, J.D., you really screwed the sofa bed with this one.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump telling his friends he likes that other girl better anyway] “Really Donald, you prefer Brittanty Mahomes? What’s your top five Brittany Mahomes songs? Is this really his angle? ‘Well, I don’t care, Taylor, because I like your boyfriend’s coworker’s wife better.'”
jordan klepper
[On Vance dismissing Swift as an out-of-touch billionaire] “You mean a disconnected celebrity billionaire like your running mate Donald Trump? The one who has a skyscraper with his name on it?”
jimmy kimmel
[After Elon Musk responded to Swift’s “childless cat lady” with a Twitter post offering/threatening to impregnate her] “Which is a statement so creepy it could be Trump’s running mate.”
jimmy kimmel
When They Go Low, They Go Right Into the Sewer
One of the most talked-about moments in Tuesday’s debate was Donald Trump whipping out one of the most reprehensible internet rumors in years (and think about that), repeating the racist slur that Ohio immigrants are preying on and eating the pets of good (meaning white), God-fearing (white), Americans—who happen to be white. Apart from being a barely updated echo of the same hacky bigoted cliché about ethic restaurants serving neighborhood pets that your dumbest middle school classmate peddled by the jungle gym, the fact that this hateful nonsense was used by Trump as a gotcha moment in a nationally televised presidential debate in the year 2024 would be disqualifying in any functional democracy. Or playground.
But this being 2024 America, Republicans went on the offensive defending Trump’s idiocy, none more so than his Vice Presidential candidate and guy who definitely didn’t have carnal relations with a couch, J.D. Vance. What’s that you say? That couch thing is just a scurrilous internet rumor with no basis in reality being used to smear the innocent? Huh, that doesn’t seem fair, does it?
“This pet-eating brain-worm got into Trump’s skull through J.D. Vance, who has been spreading a racist rumor that Haitian immigrants are abducting people’s pets and eating them in Ohio. Okay this is a good time to remind you just remember to spay or neuter your J.D. Vance.”
stephen colbert
[On noted never-nude swimmer J.D. Vance pushing the pet rumor even in the face repeated fact-checking] “You might say he jumped in the disinformation pool but kept his shirt on.”
jordan klepper
“It looks like Operation I’m Not Weird isn’t going well.”
jimmy fallon
“I had a liberal, elite day today. I woke up, I had a big cat for breakfast, then I had a baby, then I had an abortion right after that. Then I went to pick up my kids from their mandatory transgender operation surgeries after school. And now I’m back here on TV spreading Marxist propaganda, that’s how we do it.”
jimmy kimmel
“Well, the first presidential debate last night and the bar was pretty low for former President Donald Trump. All he had to do was not say anything too crazy. [Clip of Trump ranting, ‘They’re eating the dogs!’] Whoa, someone wanna help me lower this bar again?”
seth meyers
“When they heard that, a lot of people went, ‘Huh?,’ while others said ‘Whaa?,’ and dogs went ‘Ruh-roh.'”
stephen colbert
“Harris seemed really prepared, while Trump was like, ‘My homework was eaten by a dog—that was eaten by people in Ohio.'”
jimmy fallon
[After Trump cited “people on television” as sources for his pet-eating debate claim] “Aww, buddy, people on television aren’t real. I hate to be the person to break this to you but we have a lot to cover, so I’ll go quick. Tony Soprano is not actually working on bettering himself, Ross and Rachel were not on a break because they were not even together. And this is not my real hair.”
taylor tomlinson
[After David Muir’s fact-check] “No, no Dave, Dave, listen up. The TV people said that dogs are in danger everywhere. These puppies are in real danger. They keep getting into a mystery van with some groovy teenagers to fight crime. One of the teens, he’s got a goatee, he’s clearly high. And one of the girls, batting for the other team if you know what I’m saying. I mean, this is a crisis, folks. There’s nothing to say but ‘Zoinks.'”
stephen colbert
“Some of these nuts who worship [Trump] are saying she was wearing these special bluetooth earrings that allowed her staff to feed her information during the debate. Or it could be, and I don’t know if you ever thought about this, it could be the reason he lost the debate is because he was the only candidate who claimed foreigners are getting their meals delivered by Petco in Ohio.”
jimmy kimmel
“If there’s one thing we know about a racist conspiracy theory, it’s that Donald Trump’s brain will swallow it whole like a hungry immigrant at Petco.”
jordan klepper
“According to a CNN poll, 63 percent of people who watched last night’s debate thought Vice President Kamala Harris won. The other 37 percent spent today guarding their pets with their life.”
seth meyers
[After Vance responded to a reporter calling out him for spreading hateful rumors based on anonymous sources by protesting that nobody is calling his office to report Bigfoot sightings] “Not yet, they’re not. But if you want to call J.D. Vance and say you saw Bigfoot, the direct line to his office is (202) 224-3353. But please don’t, he’s very busy. Last night he got a bunch of calls saying the sprinkles on Baskin-Robbins ice cream makes you gay. So do not call (202) 224-3353 to report a Bigfoot sighting. ‘Cause Acehole Ventura Pet Detective is very busy with important stuff.”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump accusing Harris of knowing the questions in advance] “Meanwhile, Trump seemed awfully familiar with the questions nobody was asking, like, ‘Who is eating all the cats in Springfield, Ohio?'”
jordan klepper
“The White House yesterday pushed back on false claims by congressional Republicans that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating family pets and said that they are based on ‘an element of racism.’ An element of racism? That’s the biggest understatement since Tostitos A Hint of Lime. “
seth meyers
[On the apparent original source of the rumor, a Facebook post citing a report from the poster’s neighbor’s daughter’s friend] “I’m sorry, this is not my main takeaway, but someone’s cat went missing so they called their senator? I mean, were they like, ‘Hmm, should I call the President of the United States or should I start with my senator? You’ve gotta update those emergency numbers on your fridge, Barry.'”
jordan klepper
“Now, many doubts have been raised about these stories, but it does have a credible source. A screenshot of a Facebook post warning that the author’s neighbor’s daughter’s friend had discovered that her neighbors, supposedly immigrants, were trying to eat her cat. So Trump, to J.D., to the author, to the neighbor, to the daughter, to the friend, to her neighbor, to her cat. That’s a lot of connecting layers. It’s like six degrees of Feline Bacon.”
stephen colbert
One Disaster Straight On To Another
Jimmy Kimmel noted how both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump followed up their debate with a morning-after stop to pay their respects at Ground Zero on the anniversary of 9/11. While a less-than-somber Trump did get heckled for never doing so when not running for office, Kimmel one-upped that anonymous hero by playing the tape of Trump, while the towers were still smoldering, calling in to the news to brag that he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan. As Kimmel noted succinctly, “That’s right, Never Forget—what a dick he is.”
“It’s weird Kamala has been seen in public with Donald Trump more times than Melania this year.”
jimmy kimmel
“You know you did poorly at a debate when it’s 9/11 and everyone’s talking about what a disaster you were that day.”
jimmy kimmel
Potpourri
“HBO is making a new Harry Potter TV series and right now they’re casting kids to play Harry, ron, and Hermione. Yep, a new Harry Potter TV series. it’s called Harry Potter and the Lack of New Ideas. ‘Beenthereus donethaticus!'”
jimmy fallon
[On a lawsuit alleging that Trojan condoms contain “forever chemicals”] “Wow, so whether you use them or not, you’re gonna have something forever.”
seth meyers
“A Carnival cruise ship recently had a close call after it grazed an iceberg. The ship is fine but the iceberg has chronic diarrhea.”
jimmy fallon
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