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.
Have You Tried Shaking a Jar Full of Pennies?
The Donald Trump election fraud trial in New York takes Wednesdays off (“to air the place out,” suggested Jimmy Kimmel), but that only left late-night hosts time to play catchup with the widely reported fact that the GOP nominee for President can’t keep his eyes open for ten minutes at a time. As reports came out that Trump’s madly spinning legal team is being forced to come up with unique “devices” to keep their client conscious during his criminal trial, Kimmel called his nemesis “Naptain America” before mocking the apparent projection of Trump’s recent 4 a.m. social media post accusing President Biden of being the sleepy one.
“Where’s SLEEPY JOE?,” began Trump’s Truth Social post before concluding triumphantly, “He’s SLEEPING, that’s where!!!” Now apart from the fact that most people not obsessively trying to deflect attention from their own courtroom nodding would understandably be asleep at four in the morning, Kimmel pointed out that Trump’s call-and-response putdown was “like a riddle for three year olds.”
“If your main criticism of your opponent is that he is sleepy, so much that you call him Sleepy Joe, then I suggest that your one job as a candidate is to not fall asleep in public.”
seth meyers
“So far the only thing that can keep him awake is an iPad playing Bluey.”
jimmy fallon
“All right, what’s going on with him? Hibernating bears don’t sleep this much. I’m starting to think that when they said he slept with a porn star they meant literally.”
seth meyers
“Yes, ‘many devices,’ the most successful of which has been nuggets on a string.”
stephen colbert
[After a reporter described the apparently asleep Trump as being “at rest”] “I love the euphemisms. Reporters are talking about the former president like he’s a sick cat.”
seth meyers
“Oh so the trial for him covering up having sex with Stormy Daniels is a lot like him having sex with Stormy Daniels. He lasts only a few furious minutes and then nods off.”
stephen colbert
“You called her Crooked Hillary and have since been indicted four times, so we should have seen this coming. When Trump gives someone a nickname it’s only a matter of time before we can apply it to him. If he ever calls someone Hides in a Suitcase to Get Smuggled to Russia Bob, just know he’s in that extra large Samsonite.”
seth meyers
[On the report that one of Trump’s lawyers remains beside him during sidebars to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep] “His lawyers are running out of ideas to keep him awake. They’ve even hired a kindergarten teacher to stand in the front of the courtroom like, “Eyes on me, eyes on you!'”
jimmy fallon
[On right-wing media outlets furiously spinning Trump’s inability to stay awake as “heroic”] “You have to have very little self-awareness to criticize Joe Biden for being old but then call Trump a hero for falling asleep. When Biden does something silly at least we make fun of him on this show. You know how many times we’ve played the clip of him tripping up the stairs? We would never play that and say, ‘Good for him! Stairs are dumb. If I were walkin’ up them, I’d trip, too!'”
seth meyers
Marjorie Taylor Spleen
In the latest example of “Republicans in disarray,” GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene went on a furious rant to the press on Wednesday after Democrats signaled that they would vote to oppose Greene’s plan to oust fellow Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson. Green, along with several other fringe right-wing Republicans are out for Johnson’s blood since Johnson chose to actually do the Speaker’s job and force through a bipartisan aid bill to Ukraine last week. With the wild-eyed nuttiness that’s made her a symbol of MAGA extremism, Greene held up a prop hat reading “MUGA” (Make Ukraine Great Again) and called Johnson’s rare gesture of compromise as “bulls**t,” leading Kimmel to term the Georgia Republican “Klan Mom.”
“[Marjorie Taylor Greene] is acting like such a child, Matt Gaetz asked her out on a date.”
jimmy kimmel
“You know the last time a Republican congresswoman tried to take out a Johnson, Lauren Boebert got thrown out of Beetlejuice.”
jimmy kimmel
Time for Fascism
Of course, it’s not all jokes about the twice-impeached former President farting himself to sleep during a trial detailing his many infidelities, as several hosts have seized upon Donald Trump’s “chilling” (Seth Meyers’ words) interview with Time magazine as proof that a potential Trump second term is nothing to laugh at. With Trump freely admitting to plotting everything from abandoning NATO allies to Russia, concentration camps for millions of migrants, political violence should he lose the 2024 election, and prosecution of his political enemies among other fascistic fancies, the Time piece started Stephen Colbert ticking on the potential outcomes should Trump find his way into a second term.
Noting the title of the Time interview (“If He Wins”), Colbert summed it up succinctly as, “Answer: We are screwed.”
“[After Trump flatly refused to be fact-checked over one of his incendiary claims] “What do you mean, ‘No’? You can’t just turn down a fact-check like it’s an hors d’oeuvre at a dinner party.”
seth meyers
[On another of Trump’s claims, that the government would track pregnant women to prevent them seeking abortions] “Well then why stop at pregnancy? Why not monitor women for their entire cycle? ‘Open up! Open up, it’s the feds! It’s gonna be a light day!'”
stephen colbert
Potpourri
“You guys, I’m not an expert in many things, but when it comes to Donald Trump I’m like an FBI profiler. If he ever flees justice I can tell the feds exactly where he is. ‘Gentlemen, you can call off the search. He’s in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago with his head stuck in a bucket of chicken like Winnie the Pooh.'”
seth meyers
“Martinelli’s has just announced a recall of some of their apple juice over high levels of arsenic. Apple juice with arsenic? Or as Putin calls it, apple juice.”
jimmy fallon
[On the Biden administration’s plan to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug] “Weed and steroids will now be in the same league, so get ready for Phish fans who are jacked.”
stephen colbert
“Today is May first. You know what they say, ‘April showers bring May flowers.’ By the way, those are the two more porn stars that will testify in Trump’s hush money case.”
jimmy fallon
“Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin revealed in a new interview that he’s working on a new movie about Facebook’s involvement in the Capitol attack. He’s hoping it will be out in time for the next one.”
seth meyers
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