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.
Laughing So You Won’t Cry-Laugh Like the Joker
Sometimes you just have to go to work. Even when it’s the last thing you care about when something truly, life-alteringly tragic happens. For some, that means hosting a late-night comedy show where people look to you to make them laugh in their lowest hour when you yourself feel even lower. For others, it means writing about other people trying to be funny when all you want to do is curl up in bed with a very nice cat who curls up with you because he can sense you sort of need it.
Regardless, Donald Trump won, and won handily. America ran through every terrible, felonious, reprehensible, sexist, racist, trans-attacking, immigrant-smearing, Putin-suckling thing Donald Trump ever did or said, examined their hearts and souls, and signed on for another term. Meanwhile, late-night hosts who’ve spent a decade coming up with ways to make Donald Trump’s demented bigotry and childish cruelty funny looked into the mirror and steeled themselves for the even tougher task of doing four more years of Trump duty when all indications are that things will be incalculably, improbably worse for them and the millions of not-white, not-rich, not-male (Desi Lydic and Taylor Tomlinson excepted on that last one) people here and around the world.
It sucks, and the hosts made no bones about that, even if they did their damnedest to rally around their audiences and their funny colleagues in the hopes that some of that collective warmth might generate something like hope. They weren’t uniformly successful, but as Seth Meyers promised, they were all going to try to “have fun,” even in the face of the least fun night since, well, the last time Donald Trump proved to be Americans’ democratically elected pick for the true, leering, sneering, gleefully cruel and corrupt face of America.
And that’s the thing about comedians. Seeing the world, with all its hypocrisies and contradictions, its horrors and its injustices—and finding the right words to wring a laugh out of the mess. Or, as Stephen Colbert kicked off his Wednesday monologue, sometimes you can only say, “Well… well, f**k.” He’s only human, people.
“I slept two hours last night and I feel like sh*t. Let’s do this!”
desi lydic
“You know, I spent a lot of time over the last 17 hours or so thinking about what I would say tonight, what there even is to say tonight—and there’s nothing, Good night everybody!”
jimmy kimmel
“I was watching the results come in because I couldn’t sleep. And it was like Christmas Eve, you know? Like if on Christmas morning you’re either going to wake up to find that Santa left presents under the tree or if he just took a huge dumb in your fireplace.”
seth meyers
“All day yesterday I was walking around proudly wearing my ‘I Voted’ sticker. Today I wore my ‘I am questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity’ sticker.”
stephen colbert
“It’s 2016 all over again, it’ll be 2016 forever, and if we’re gonna have to relive all the bad sh*t from 2016 we should at least get to do the good sh*t too. HBO should bring back Veep, Beyoncé should bring back Lemonade, we should all get back to playing Pokémon Go. If American democracy is about to crumble, we should at least spend our time wandering around with our phones, looking for invisible Charizards and the, when you find one, report it to Donald Trump so he can report it.”
seth meyers
“The deep shock and sense of loss is enormous. But let’s look at the bright side—this way at least there’ll be a peaceful transfer of power.”
stephen colbert
‘This is a joyful place to work and we hope that you can see the joy when you’re watching at home. We’re not going to let anything take that joy away, even when we’re talking about things that are not particularly joyful. For example, here’s something—I don’t think Donald Trump’s a good person. I’d even go so far as to say he’s a bad person. Now, in my defense I’m only basing that on everything I’ve ever been taught about what makes someone good or bad.”
seth meyers
“Just like the relationship between Trump and Eric, this one wasn’t close at all. Oh my God, I have four more years of Eric jokes, f**k me.”
desi lydic
“But I’ve got to say, it is an honor to be on television while women are still allowed to be.”
taylor tomlinson
“My only request to President-elect Trump is that he lets me share a prison cell with Taylor Swift. I’m really good at making bracelets and I think we’d get along just fine. We’ll see how funny that is in six months when the great talk show host round-up begins.”
jimmy kimmel
“As a late-night host, people often say to me, ‘Come onnnn, part of you has got to want Trump to win. ‘Cause he gives you so much material to work with.’ No, no. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, ‘Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea! There’s so much material for you to work with.'”
stephen colbert
“The only difference is in 2016 I had the energy to get through a Trump presidency. Now look at me. To get through another one they’re gonna have to give me whatever drugs they’re giving Trump. I assume they hide some Adderall in his Big Macs they way you give medicine to a dog.”
seth meyers
“So how did everybody sleep last night? Seriously, which sedatives did you take?”
taylor tomlinson
“The election wasn’t really close. It was a big night for Donald Trump and an even bigger night for Don Julio.”
jimmy fallon
“As we’re all about to plunge back into the Trump-hole, here’s what occurs to me. He started as a joke and ended as a tragedy. This time he starts as a tragedy. Who knows what he’ll end as? A limerick? ‘There once was a man who was orange…’ Dammit!”
stephen colbert
[On Trump gaining ground in almost every demographic] “Seems the only people you can’t blame for Trump’s victory are Black women and people in comas. And puppies. Or puppies in comas. Oh dammit, I just made myself more sad.”
desi lydic
“A lot of people want solutions, so they’re posting today about what we can do to move forward, and I think that’s valuable. But also, let’s take a f**king second to be sad. If your friend dies, you go to the funeral and you say, ‘I really miss my friend.’ You don’t go to the funeral and immediately scream, ‘Volunteer at the library!!'”
taylor tomlinson
What the F**k Happened?
It’s tempting to look for people or groups to blame. And certainly there’s plenty to go around. The media normalized a felon and rapist who literally tried to overthrow democracy once before, who praised fascist dictators past and present, and whose mental decline was sane-washed in the name of propriety and/or pumping up the election year horse race for clicks. White Americans overlooked [checks notes] everything to reelect that same seditionist bigot while covering their asses with talk of the economy or made-up fairy tales about kids getting secret gender reassignment surgery in public schools.
Black men showed a bias against Black women. Hispanic voters sucked up to a man who’s made clear his unthinkable immigration camps won’t make fine distinctions about which brown people are “undesirable.” Gen Z didn’t save us, with especially young white males weaned on toxic bro podcasters and out-racist-ing each other on their Fortnight headsets flocking to a crude, insult comic manchild as their idol. Hell, even late-night comedians spent much of the last four years cracking every increasingly tired “Joe Biden sure is old” joke until a dedicated and effective leader’s considerable accomplishments were swamped by hacky punchlines.
In the end, America chose Donald Trump—and what he represents. Late-night hosts mirrored a lot of us who thought we already knew how ignorant, cruel, bigoted, and awful people could be, only to wake up on Wednesday still amazed by our ability to be shocked.
“This Donald Trump is like the Emperor from Star Wars. He’s old, he’s evil, and he keeps coming back with no reasonable explanation whatsoever.”
jimmy kimmel
“Yeah, it’s official. America has elected its first criminal president before electing its first female president. What a day for proud felonists.”Â
desi lydic
“When I was in grade school they told us anyone could grow up to be President, but they didn’t say literally f**king anyone.”
seth meyers
“And in this democracy the majority has spoken—and they said they don’t care that much about democracy.”
stephen colbert
“What the actual f**k, America? We have had two qualified, distinguished women nominated for president and both times they lost to the worst man in the whole country. At this point it’s starting to look like we’re going to get every other first before we get a first woman president. First Amish president, first Wahlberg president—hey, there’s no rule that says a dog can’t be president, as long as it’s a boy dog.”
desi lydic
“But instead of breaking the glass ceiling, last night America decided to get back with her dirtbag ex, and I had no idea how much she missed him.”
desi lydic
“In exit polls, voters said they were looking for the candidate that could bring needed change. Okay but change, that’s a vague word. It includes a lot of possible outcomes. For example, you could remodel your kitchen. Or you could burn your house down. That’s what you call an open concept.”
stephen colbert
“Yup, Trump returning to the White House is a huge, historic comeback for somebody who literally never went away.”
jimmy fallon
“That’s right, Trump’s back just four years after he sicced a mob on the Capitol to overthrow American democracy. We had a long montage all teed up to remind you how awful things were the first time, but you guys remember, and it was a huge bummer. But you remember—when we were constantly immersed in crisis after crisis and our nervous systems were perpetually overwhelmed by a cascade of catastrophes and cataclysms, and the President was the biggest, loudest weirdo on the f*cking planet.”Â
seth meyers
“And I’m sorry, I don’t care if he won, he is still so weird. I mean, why does he stand like that, why? He looks like a snake who swallowed an antelope.”
seth meyers
“We had the choice between a prosecutor and a criminal and we chose the criminal to be President of the United States. More than half of this country voted for the criminal who’s planning to pardon himself for his crimes.”
jimmy kimmel
“Just think about what happened here. America voted this guy out in 2020. And what has he done since then? He tried to overthrow the government, he was convicted of 34 felonies, he spent an entire campaign promising vengeance against his enemies. And if you’re wondering who, after all of that, would want to back him up, well buckle up—it’s a long list.”
desi lydic
[On Trump claiming his first term went great] “Yeah, who didn’t love to have a swab shoved up to your brain so you could go tot unemployment office to beg for a check and then come home and wipe your ass with your mail because the store was out of toilet paper. Yeah, Trump’s back, baby!”
seth meyers
“Look, as productive as this feels right now, I’m not really interested in gaming out why this happened. This defeat was so resounding that you would literally say anything and it would be plausible. She should have picked Moo Deng for her VP. She should have gone on the Hawk Tuah girl’s podcast. Maybe she visited Wisconsin too much—sure that makes sense, why not?”
desi lydic
“Honestly, I don’t really care why she lost, I care why he won. We have spent so much time diagnosing Donald Trump and what his actions say about him. He’s a dictator, he’s a fascist, he’s a malignant narcissist whose blood type is fryer oil. But it’s pretty clear that America is the one that needs the diagnosis, because what ever’s wrong with him, we f**king love it. In this moment Donald Trump is holding up a mirror to the American people and it might be time to take a good f**king hard look.”
desi lydic
Idiocracy: The Documentary
It’s easy to call Americans who voted for Donald Trump stupid—so let’s not screw around. One of the most, in retrospect, almost endearing reported Election Day stories was how a startling number of voters seemingly didn’t know that Joe Biden had dropped out of the race. (Jimmy Kimmel did a whole person on the street segment that bluntly proved that a whole lot of Americans have apparently been bonked on the head with frying pans.)
Now that level of ignorance may seem improbable. But then, just maybe, not everybody in the country is glued to their social media, phones, cable news, podcasts, newspapers, and late-night monologue round-up articles as the rest of us. And if you’re looking for a silver lining, the trend does suggest that a small sliver of Americans might not be as evil as they are just dumb. It’d almost be charming—if, you know…
[On trending Google searches asking if Joe Biden has dropped out of the race] “What the hell? It happened a long time ago. You might as well be Googling ‘Why no more Cosby?’ Or, ‘Tupac, new music when?'”
stephen colbert
“This time America knew exactly what they were getting and they went hard for him anyway. It’s like that famous quote, ‘Those who do not learn from history… are me! Hey, that’s me! Which reminds me, I wanted to look something up. Hey Google, did Joe Biden drop out of the election?'”
stephen colbert
Siri, Look Up ‘Quisling’
Pointing out hypocrisy in Republicans has lost its effectiveness. There used to be something called shame in having your word and deeds thrown back in your face with the exact opposite things you said just a few years, months, or even weeks ago. Showing up politicians for suiting their so-called staunchly held morals and ethics to whatever they think will bring them the most power in the moment has been a comic staple since comedy became a thing. Pointing out hypocrisy and double-dealing bullsh*t is foundational to humor, political or otherwise.
But Republicans, fiscal conservatives, evangelicals, family-first and “pro-life” values voters have all, collectively, shown their asses with Donald Trump. He’s everything personally they claim to abhor, and so many of them are on record condemning him before he came to power that showing those clips juxtaposed with the fawning, bootlicking praise they heap on a victorious Trump now just beads up and rolls off of their oily, soulless hides. It’s still damning when comics do it, but it’s dispiriting to watch how little effect public humiliation has on those who’ve sold their—let’s call them souls.
[After a clip of current Trump lackey Lindsay Graham condemning Trump and claiming”count me out” in 2021] “‘Count me out, that’s right, unless he wins, then count me right back in. You hear that Meemaw? The man just ‘bout destroyed democracy but I’d still rather be with him than spend another night sanitizing your CPAP, you old warthog!'”
seth meyers
[On Republicans suddenly deciding that voter fraud isn’t a thing since Trump won] “Last time the Democrats cheated. This time? We chose not to, I guess.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump won last night in pretty convincing fashion, securing the Electoral College and the popular vote. Which means that for the first time ever, he’ll accept the results of an election.”
jimmy fallon
“If you think Democrats are being hyperbolic about a second Trump term, just remember the man who’ll be Trump’s Vice President said Trump could be America’s Hitler. They all know the real Trump. When they got a close-up look, they were all horrified. And yet Trump’s apologists in right-wing media want you to think he’ll magically transform into a different person.”
seth meyers
“It was a huge night for Republicans. They also took the Senate and a lot of the news media is asking if a Republican Senate will keep Trump in check. Which feels like asking the getaway driver of a bank robbery, ‘So you’re gonna make sure they spend the money wisely, right?'”
taylor tomlinson
[On the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Trump won’t actually be a fascist dictator—because he doesn’t have the attention span] “Well there’s a cup of sunshine. He’s too unfocused to be a fascist! ‘He might have put immigrants in camps… but he doesn’t’t have the concentration!'”Â
stephen colbert
[On right-wing pundits assuring everyone that Trump is totally different this time] “You think Trump is a changed man? Five days ago he was simulating fellatio on a microphone. I don’t think that’s a side effect of surviving an assassination attempt. I don’t remember Ronald Reagan coming out of the hospital honking imaginary boobs for cheap laughs.”
seth meyers
“Most of all it was an absolute disaster of a night for Melania. But it was a really good night for Putin, and for polio, and for lovable millionaires like Elon Musk and all the bros up in Silicon Valley, and all the wriggling brain worms who sold what was left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump.”
jimmy kimmel
So What the F**k Happens Next?
Hosts were united in their undisguised worry about the future. Sort of what happens when you’ve spent the better part of a decade poring over everything Donald Trump says and does—the prospect of him running the country for four more years gets put in very uncomfortable context.
Everybody held it together pretty well. They’re pros, after all, even if Jimmy Kimmel caught himself choking back tears when assessing those people and groups who are going to suffer most once Trump undertakes the unstable course of vengeance and bigoted retribution he has promised (and corporate media types keep assuring us he doesn’t really mean to enact.) It was a moment of pure human empathy of the sort that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have made the stuff of derision and “You mad, bro?” Twitter putdowns, and for noted Trump critic (and target) Kimmel to break down so publicly is a sign of just how weighty the moment and how dark the future are.
Still, everybody had a show to do, they were all surrounded by friends and colleagues as disheartened and shellshocked as they were, and at least they weren’t alone, a sentiment they tried to impart to their viewers. It was a nice gesture, and a necessary one. Even if, like Kimmel, there really wasn’t much comfort to be had. As for those Trump voters hate-watching who were no doubt delighted to see all these famous libs get owned or whatever, well, hosts also had some far less empathetic warnings for you, too.
“They want you to think they’re just edgelord podcasters but they’re not, they’re oligarchs. The richest man alive whose company has contracts with the Pentagon and who owns one of the largest social media platforms has teamed up with a billionaire who’ll soon be the most powerful man in the world for a second time to consolidate their power over society and the economy. They’re not your bros. They’re not gonna come over to your house and smoke weed and play Diablo with you.”
seth meyers
[On George Stephanopoulos assuring viewers that this election’s lessons will be felt for generations] “Aww, we’re gonna last generations? That is the optimism I was looking for!”
desi lydic
“Who knows what the next four years are gonna be like? What we do know is that we’re going to be governed by a monstrous child surrounded by cowards and grifters. And my brain keeps pumping out an unlimited supply of ramifications. It’s really hard to see a bright side here. So far all I’ve got is his inaugural address. Because while it’s going to kick his administration off to a terrible start, at least we know the mic stand is gonna get a happy ending.”
stephen colbert
“The coming years are gonna be fascinating. And I use the term fascinating in the same way Mr. Spock would when the Enterprise was about to sucked into a black hole.”
stephen colbert
“Donald Trump ran a dark and ominous campaign where he called his opponents vermin, scum, and the enemy within. He’s not gonna suddenly become a soft and cuddly uniter. I know he likes to play dress up, but that’s one costume he can’t pull off.”
seth meyers
“I wish I had some trenchant words of wisdom to impart, I’m sad to say I don’t. We’re about to step over the precipice into truly uncharted territory. You need only look back to Trump’s first term to get a sense of how dangerous his second term will be. And no one can say they didn’t know what they were getting because Trump made it crystal clear. All I know is that the fight for justice doesn’t end with one election. We must gird ourselves for what comes next and do everything in our power to make real the world we want to live in. At times like this, when everything feels overwhelming and impossible like all hope is lost, we have no choice but to look back on the broad scope of history. Justice is not automatic, comeuppance is not guaranteed. Politics is unfortunately not a Marvel movie, even though Joe Biden does look eerily like old Captain America.”Â
seth meyers
“Donald Trump has been very clear about what he’ll do when he returns to power. Military-style round-ups of migrants, using the power of the state to crush his opponents and pursue his grievances, eliminating the Department of Education, letting climate change run rampant, spreading conspiracy theories about health care and vaccines. He said he would be a dictator on day one. The question is what will the rest of us be doing on day one? If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who said no to Trump’s dark, dangerous vision for America last night, now’s the time to stand in solidarity with our friends, with our neighbors, with the vulnerable communities. And begin the hard work of making real the world we want to live in. That’s what we will be doing, and I hope you’ll join us.”
seth meyers
“That doesn’t mean the struggle toward a more just and compassionate world is futile. It just means it’s f**king hard, and soul-crushing, and heartbreaking, and agonizing, and it never ends. Democracy does not happen only on Election Day. For nearly a decade, Americans organized, protested, donated, voted time and time again to repudiate Trump and the MAGA movement. A broad anti-Trump coalition won decisively in 2018, 2020, and 2022, and MAGA candidates were routinely rejected. But it’s a big divided country and this time the streak just ran out.”Â
seth meyers
“Let’s be honest, it was a terrible night last night. It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who make this country go. For health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth, and democracy, and decency. It was a bad night for everyone who voted against him and guess what, it was a bad night for everyone who voted for him—you just don’t realize it yet.”
jimmy kimmel
Potpourri
“Of course Trump’s already super busy. First he has to move all those classified documents back into the White House.”
jimmy fallon
[On several states voting to protect abortion rights while also voting for Donald Trump] “And that’s great and I’m very happy about that. But I can’t get over the fact that they decided to restore rights while also voting for the guy that ripped those rights away in the first place. It’s like voting to make chainsaws illegal while voting to make Leatherface president.”
seth meyers
“Tim Walz right now is in his backyard playing a very solemn game of cornhole by himself.”
jimmy kimmel
“Yup, 224 versus 292. It’s basically Trump’s made-up weight versus his actual weight.”
jimmy fallon
“Kamala Harris called Trump too. She conceded—and then explained what the word conceded means.”
jimmy kimmel
“Why does he have to be president? Usually when you’re reintegrating an ex-con back into society you just have to let them work at Baskin Robbins.”
taylor tomlinson
[On Trump’s looming sentencing hearing for his 34 felony convictions] “Yup, Trump could be the first president to be under White House arrest.”
jimmy fallon
[On the not-at-all revealing fact that multiple bomb threats called into exclusively Democratic-leaning voting precincts were traced to Russia] “You can tell Russia is running out of ideas when they’re trying to disrupt our elections now using the same tricks kids used to use in the 80’s to get out of P.E.”
jimmy kimmel
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