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.
Late-Night Beat Down
The old saying goes, “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” (RIP, Michael K. Williams.) That could likely be adapted to the late-night motto, “If you come for someone paid to tell jokes about you for a living, you’d best have some decent jokes of your own—or at least a competent fact-checker.” Sadly for Donald Trump, his recent decision to attack Jimmy Kimmel Live! and recent Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel demonstrated a serious lack of both comic ammunition and accuracy, as Trump’s social media shot blew up in his face on Wednesday.
Kimmel, naturally, was delighted to spend most of his Wednesday monologue breaking down every facet of Trump’s error-filled, occasionally all-caps tirade (with late-night colleague and podcast partner Stephen Colbert adding cover fire from over on CBS). Much as the host took a red pencil to Trump’s rambling Gettysburg address on Monday, Kimmel clearly had a ball breaking down all the falsities in his nemesis’ post. (Some easily disproven examples: Kimmel did not present Best Picture; that award is not called “Picture of the Year”; the traditional introduction to the winner is not “And the winner is…”; this year’s Oscar ratings went up and not down; and Jimmy Kimmel is not actual Best Picture presenter Al Pacino.) As Kimmel put it, “Maybe you dreamed this during one of your courtroom siestas, I don’t know.”
“It appears that, once again, I ruffled the feathers of our Kentucky fried former President.”
jimmy kimmel
“The person who presented the award was Al Pacino, not me. We are different people. Now don’t get me wrong, I wish I was Al Pacino, I’m just not… You’d think he would know that because I’m pretty sure, ‘Say hello to my little friend!’ is what he said to Stormy Daniels that got him in all this trouble.”
jimmy kimmel
“You keep my friend Jimmy Kimmel’s name out of your weird little wet mouth!”
stephen colbert
[On Trump wrongly claiming the ratings went down] “That must be why they asked me to host the show again next year. Which I wasn’t planning to do, but now I might. Maybe you can watch it on the TV in the rec room at Rikers.”
jimmy kimmel
“I guess I should be honored the the former President of the United States took time out of his busy schedule googling ‘Ivanka in bikini’ to rant about me, but…”
jimmy kimmel
[On Trump focusing on a TV broadcast from five weeks ago] “I look forward to his new campaign slogan: Trump 2024— They gave it to Green Book?”
stephen colbert
“This was five weeks ago. My parents don’t even care any more.”
jimmy kimmel
Astroturf in Harlem
Trump did have the day off from his criminal trial on Wednesday, leaving him free not only to obsess over a month-old joke but to stage another of his increasingly transparent photo ops. You know, like the one last week when it was revealed that the young woman who effusively embraced Trump at an Atlanta Chick-fil-A was not indicative of any groundswell of support from the Black community for Trump, but was in fact a conservative activist and organizer who helped stage the event.
This time, Trump, being stuck in his home town for that whole “paying hush money to a porn star and falsifying records to sway an election” trial, set out for a Harlem bodega, where the vocal, mixed-race crowd was once more touted by his campaign as proof that his base isn’t comprised of approximately 99 percent angry, bigoted white people. Sadly for Trump, reporters quickly spotted members of the New York Young Republican Club chanting pro-Trump slogans from the crowd, giving up the game that that group had staged another deceptive PR stunt.
[After Trump’s awkward attempt at small talk] “Are you kidding me, Donald Trump? You’re gonna tell an immigrant father that his son should get into acting? What is wrong with you? As soon as you leave, the dad is gonna be like, ‘Don’t you listen to that crazy man, you’re taking this store over when I die!'”
Dulcé sloan
“Now, for my viewers who do not live in New York, ‘bodega’ is Spanish for place where you can get coffee, cigarettes, spicy chips you can only get in Uruguay, dusty cans of Chef Boyardee, ginseng vitality juice that makes your hair feel like it’s screaming, and, for some reason, one electric lawnmower up on a high shelf. All run by a guy who exclusively calls you, ‘big boss.'”
stephen colbert
“By the way, if you’re from New York, you know it killed all those guys to have Trump standing around in that store, wasting everyone’s time. That owner was two seconds from being like, ‘Hey Donald, buy something or get the f**k out!'”
dulcé sloan
“Specifically, Trump chose to stop by Sanaa Convenient Store because it been the site of a violent attack that resulted in public criticism of the district attorney now prosecuting him. Or he was just there buying scratchers. ‘C’mon, c’mon! Daddy owes 454 million to the state of New York!'”
stephen colbert
“I’m surprised Trump didn’t hit up the lotto machine while he was there. Dude owes over $500 million in fines. Can you imagine owing so much money that you have to hit Powerball just to get back to zero?”
dulcé sloan
[After Trump claimed the “bodega association” invited him to Harlem] “Yes, it’s true, there is a bodega association. They share an office with the International Brotherhood of Guys Selling Bootleg DVDs on a Blanket in Chinatown.”
stephen colbert
Jury Dissection
With seven jurors having been chosen from the thousands of New Yorkers called to sit on one of the most momentous (and potentially embarrassing) trials in Presidential history, late-night hosts took this Wednesday respite to pore over the scant details about the three women and four men picked so far. (Just a note to reporters—when courts are taking Mob boss-style anonymity measures to protect jurors from the defendant’s violent and fanatical minions, perhaps a few fewer clues are in order.)
[On one chosen juror referring to Trump as “fascinating and mysterious”] “‘Fascinating and mysterious?’ He’s not a Chanel fragrance.”
dulcé sloan
[On the same guy] “Like when he says he wants to shoot protesters and jail his opponents—what does he mean? I can fix him.”
stephen colbert
[After one juror was excused for sharing an A.I. meme calling Trump “Dumb as f**k”] “Damn, I didn’t know A.I. was coming for my job.”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
[On Nike’s controversially revealing women’s Olympic uniforms] “This outfit should not be for Team USA. Team Brazilian? Absolutely.”
dulcé sloan
“Momentum is building to oust [Mike] Johnson from his House speakership. And they just got rid of the last guy six months ago. ‘Republican Speaker of the House’ has joined the list of least secure jobs, just below ‘#2 leader of ISIS,’ ‘world’s oldest man,’ and ‘Rupert Murdoch’s fiancée.'”
stephen colbert
[After NBA player Jontay Porter received a lifetime ban for gambling on his own team] “It’s the harshest punishment the NBA can hand down besides making you play for the Detroit Pistons.”
dulcé sloan
[Responding to Trump wingman Stephen Miller calling his former boss “a style icon”] “It’s true, Trump is a style icon, whose barrier-breaking fashion choices include: tie stolen from party clown.”
stephen colbert
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