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.
Slime Over Substance
Tuesday night’s Vice Presidential debate saw a raft of conservative commentators marveling at the way GOP running mate J.D. Vance somehow managed to get through an entire televised debate without looking like a deranged old bigot ranting in the lobby of a Starbucks. Of course, many things that J.D. Vance said in the debate were lies, and not just lies, but the sort of jaw-droppingly brazen and shameless denials of our shared reality that it’s all late-night hosts could do to top each others’ comic metaphors for just how egregiously the American public was being gaslighted. (Seth Meyers even introduced a new cool-down segment called, “Seth Drinks Some Tea & Meditates to Calm Down,” to no avail.)
Vance claimed that Donald Trump saved the Affordable Care Act (Trump worked for four years to destroy Obamacare), scoffed at the observation from human beings with working sensory organs that Donald Trump attempted a coup when he lost the 2020 election (January 6 would like a word), and basically smirked his way right into the hearts of conservative post-debate pundits like a guy successfully convincing you that Truth Social stock is still a great investment no matter what that stupid stock market says. It was a cynical strategy to try and “un-fascist Trump’s ideas with a calm voice and blue eyes,” according to a visibly pissed off Stephen Colbert.
You know, like how J.D. Vance is the prótegé/puppet of creepily fascist right-wingers who’ve called democracy played out and said we need to get over “our dictator phobia,” and who desperately tries to hide his hip-deep involvement with the politically beyond-unpalatable Project 2025. Colbert continued, summing up Vance’s “Well, actually…” mansplainer lies with spot-on vehemence like:
[On Vance claiming that it was Trump trying to kill the Affordable Care Act that saved the Affordable Care Act] “That kind of junior high debate team sophistry is exactly the kind of behavior intelligent people use to justify evil. ‘You know what? You know when you think about it it could be argued that Godzilla really spearheaded Tokyo’s urban renewal. And he wouldn’t have to use his nuclear breath if we just had more domestic energy production.'”
stephen colbert
“He also had the audacity to say that Trump saved Obamacare, which is so brazenly false. You might as well say Trump was our first Black President.”
jimmy kimmel
“Trump came within one vote of succeeding until John McCain’s infamous thumbs-down. And I remember that vividly because I was up at 1:30 in the morning watching it live on f**king C-SPAN like the rest of the country, nervously pacing in my apartment and chain-smoking Parliaments until I remembered emphysema wouldn’t be covered if Trump repealed Obamacare.”
seth meyers
[On Vance lying that he’s never supported a national abortion ban, something he was recorded saying just two years ago] “That’s what happens when you say yes to every right-wing podcast in the universe. J.D. Vance is on record contradicting everything he says now. Politicians used to be worried about being caught on a hot mic but now they go into every McMansion basement they can find like they’re on a hot mic scavenger hunt.”
seth meyers
[On Vance claiming that Donald Trump “peacefully gave over power”] “Yeah, 14 days after his plot to overthrow the election ended in a violent coup that failed. That’s like saying to your ex, ‘Barbara, I think it’s rich that you’re calling me psychotically obsessed with our relationship when I left your and Brad’s wedding peacefully. You’re the one who won’t stop talking about me setting fire to the DJ.'”
stephen colbert
“J.D. Vance managed to present himself as polite, polished. He even had some jokes, like when he said that Trump peacefully handed over power, that was hilarious.”
jimmy kimmel
“What are you talking about? He left office peacefully only because he tried to stay in office violently and failed. You don’t get credit for being faithful to your wife just because you hit on someone at a bar and they said no. ‘Is that lipstick on your collar?’ ‘Well you know it is really rich for you to ask me that, as I am currently home which means I am not with another woman.'”
seth meyers
[On Vance refusing to answer whether he accepts that Trump lost the 2020 election by claiming he’s “focusing on the future”] “I’m focused on the future? I didn’t know you could answer questions with that. You know? Next time my wife asks me why I forgot to pick up the kids I’ll say, ‘Hey—hey, hey, hey, I’m focused on the future. Where are the kids now?'”
michael kosta
“Or how about the next time I get pulled over? ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ ‘I know how fast I am going, zero miles an hour. That’s got to count for something, officer.'”
michael kosta
“If you ask someone a straightforward question and then say I’m focused on the future,’ that’s how you know you’re caught in a lie. It’s like if you were conducting a performance review at Dairy Queen and asked one of your employees, ‘Hey Devin, before we talk about your request for a raise, did you stick your penis into the soft-serve machine, then post a video of it on TikTok and call it the Jack Frost Challenge?,’ and he said, ‘Ummmm, I’m focused on the future,’ then yes, he stuck his penis in the soft-serve machine.”
seth meyers
“I appreciate J.D. Vance. He’s not focused on Trump trying to steal the last election, he’s focused on Trump trying to steal the next election, and honestly, that is progress.”
michael kosta
[On the viral clip of Vance throwing a hissy-fit after CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan fact-checked his lie that the Haitian immigrants he’s attacked with racist slander are in the country illegally] “This is like a guy getting caught cheating and being like, ‘But you said you’d never go through my phone! The trust is gone.'”
taylor Tomlinson
[On O’Donnell and Brennan cutting off the candidates’ mics] “And before anyone asks, yes I masturbated to this. A woman silencing men? Yeah, that’s going in the spank bank.”
taylor tomlinson
[On Vance claiming that the answer to school shootings is “doors that lock better”] “This is like Boeing saying, ‘We know our planes have been having some mechanical problems, but we have a solution—puffier life jackets.'”
jimmy kimmel
“Vance is brazen and shameless but he’s admittedly smooth. He’s like a slick used car dealer that can be very convincing until you remember that the car he’s trying to sell you is an AMC Gremlin with raccoons in the engine.”
seth meyers
“The point is, J.D. Vance might seem normal with the sound down and no furniture around.”
stephen colbert
People Only Watch for the Crashes
Televised debates are rarely (as in never) the lively, substantive clashes of ideas and ideology they are ntended to be as part of a healthy and functioning democracy. Instead, they’re increasingly a manufactured and artificial exercise in pre-scripted zingers and slyly workshopped talking points designed to wallpaper over a candidate’s rough, unsightly spots. (Like, say, J.D. Vance endorsing Project 2025’s creepy, dystopian vision of an America where women’s periods are tracked and pregnant women are chased across state lines to prevent them from accessing reproductive care. Just as an example.)
Morning-after analysis of debates generally boil down to whether or not somebody was good on TV, and for late-night comics, the relative lack of fireworks in last night’s Vice Presidential debate was an anticlimactic hurdle to get over, even if some hosts were better at seeing the big picture than others. You be the judge.
“By the way, you know this election is scary when people are actually watching the VP debate.”
taylor tomlinson
“Basically people were expecting a horror movie and instead they got a Hallmark movie.”
jimmy fallon
“We’re all still struggling to digest last night’s Vice Presidential debate. Which is surprising because usually I have no problem eating two slices of white bread.”
stephen colbert
“This felt like when you watch a regular fantasy show after you’ve seen Game of Thrones and you’re like, ‘Okay, where’s the incest?'”
taylor tomlinson
[On polls showing the debate had virtually no effect on voters] “Great! The entire debate was pointless and irrelevant, so in a way, it really did prepare them to be Vice President.”
michael kosta
[On pundits gushing over how “normal” last night’s debate was compared to Donald Trump’s] “Hey, you know what’s not normal? Celebrating how normal something is. ‘Uh, your special tonight is a totally normal, nothing-to-see-here piece of chicken, which is definitely not the chef’s foot that fell into a pot. It is served on a bed of Dr. Shoals—bon appé-feet.'”
stephen colbert
“I don’t think I’m alone in saying that the debate mostly made me sleepy. Which makes sense—two older white guys debating politics? That’s the original white noise machine.”
taylor tomlinson
“Thank God we have all these sharp political pundits to give us a broad array of opinions. They called [J.D. Vance] slick so much that I couldn’t tell if Tim Walz was debating J.D. Vance or Moo Deng.”
michael kosta
“But here’s the thing, Donald Trump hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still the main character. This is like a scene from It without Pennywise on camera, and suddenly everyone’s like, ‘Well, I guess there’s no more scary clowns in Derry. Oooo, free sewer balloon!'”
stephen colbert
[On Trump tweeting about the death of Pete Rose during Vance’s debate] “Now that tweet may seem unrelated to the debate but Pete Rose was a beloved figure who played for Cincinnati, which is in Ohio, which is next to several swing states, so the calculus here is very—I’m just kidding, he was bored as sh*t.”
michael kosta
“Most polls found that J.D. Vance won the debate, however all those polls were taken at a Sephora.”
jimmy fallon
“Trump of course said Vance crushed it. He was said to be so pleased with Vance’s performance that he gifted him a $50 gift card to Sephora.'”
jimmy kimmel
No Really, This One’s the Bombshell
Look, there have been many, many, dispiritingly numerous scandals that hopeful/naive voters pointed to as the bombshell that would torpedo Donald Trump’s hateful, farcical political career forever. But the release late Wednesday afternoon of special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page report on Donald Trump’s actions up to, on, and following January 6th does seem like kind of a big freaking deal.
Packed with damning transcripts (Trump saying “make them riot” as MAGA minions gathered to attack the Capitol, for one), easily decipherable redacted names of multiple high-ranking GOP co-conspirators, and the sort of on the record criminality you usually only see from New York mayors attempting to get free trips to Turkey, Smith’s report is poised to dominate the news for—well, until the attention-deficient mainstream media gets distracted by whatever chum the desperate, all-caps tweeting Trump hurls into the waters. On Wednesday, though, it was only Jimmy Kimmel (and trusty sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez) who claimed to have read the bulging dossier of treasonous goodies in time to make with the jokes.
[On the report detailing how Trump’s badgering of Mike Pence to throw the election to him even included interrupting Pence on Christmas Day] “Can you imagine calling a guy to wish him a Merry Christmas and he’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah—I need you to commit some treason for me. It’s Christmas treason!'”
jimmy kimmel
[On Pence’s attempts to gently get Trump to accept reality rather than, you know, attempt to overthrow democracy] “Pence was like, ‘Keep your head up,’ and Trump was like, ‘I’m gonna put your head up in a noose.'”
jimmy kimmel
“I feel like as a country we’re not paying enough attention to the fact that the reason Mike Pence was not on the debate stage last night is that Trump tried to hang him like a human pair of TruckNutz.”
jimmy kimmel
“We are now 33 days away from the election, we are 34 days away from Trump saying the election was rigged.”
jimmy kimmel
Bawk-Bawk-Bawk (Again)
After bailing on a second debate with Kamala Harris last week, Donald Trump on Wednesday chickened out on an interview with 60 Minutes. (Harris, naturally, has agreed to the interview.) It’s yet another example of self-proclaimed alpha male MAGA ubermensch Trump scurrying away from being exposed on an actual news network outside of his protective Fox News and fringe podcast bubble, with Trump’s excuses (this time) hanging on the idea that CBS News was mean to him once, so he’s storming off in a huff. You know, like a real tough guy.
[On Trump denying he’s scared to be interviewed, telling some assembled reporters, “I do you”] “As someone who interviews people for a living, we don’t love it when our subjects describe the process as ‘I do you.'”
seth meyers
“He won’t do 60 Minutes, but if there is a group of dufuses in flat-brimmed hats with a podcast where they call him bro, he will be happy to plug your energy drink on that.”
jimmy kimmel
“So if you’re keeping track, Trump says he’ll stand up to the President of China but Leslie Stahl is a little too scary.”
jimmy fallon
“I guess he learned his lesson with Eric and Don Jr, he’s pulling out.”
jimmy kimmel
[On even Fox News pointing out Trump’s lies that President Biden was ignoring red states’ calls for help after Hurricane Helene] “That’s Trump’s favorite channel calling him out. That’s like if the NBC description of this show was, ‘Who are we kidding, you’re not staying up that late.'”
seth meyers
Potpourri
“California just announced that they are banning sell-by and best before food labels. Yeah, they prefer everybody to use the more scientific method of going up to their spouse and going, ‘Does this smell right to you?'”
jimmy fallon
[On the ominous disappearance of Katmai National Park’s odds-on favorite in their annual Fat Bear Week Contest, 480 Otis] “Things aren’t looking great for the missing bear because it’s probable he succumbed to age, injury, or starvation somewhere in the park’s vast forests or tundra. But just to be sure, somebody check RFK Jr.’s freezer.”
stephen colbert
[On Trump calling Afghan soldiers “like a million Rambos”] “Sounds crazy, I know, But they actually did make a million Rambos. There’s Rambo First Blood, Rambo Last Blood, Rambo: Wait There’s More Blood, Rambo: That’s Just Ketchup, and Rambo: Nope It Was Blood.”
stephen colbert
[After perpetually toilet-obsessed Trump complains about something called “water-free bathrooms”] “Water-free bathrooms? Are we sure he didn’t just poop in a coat closet?”
stephen colbert
[On Trump’s rankings on the annual Forbes list of rich people] “They give each billionaire a philanthropy score. Five is the most generous when it comes to giving back, and one is Donald Trump. He really puts the ‘felon’ in ‘philanthropy.'”
jimmy kimmel
[On clips of Tim Walz jogging and then getting late-night pizza while in New York] “Being good all day and then throwing in the towel and eating garbage right before bed? [Tearing up] That man is America.”
stephen colbert
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