From the ongoing chaos wrought by Trump’s trade wars, to the alarming detention of a U.S. resident for protesting against the ongoing attacks on Palestinians, to Trump’s contentious visit with the Irish Prime Minister, late-night hosts continued to try and keep up with the news. Here’s our Wednesday rundown.
Seth Meyers
To begin his Wednesday “A Closer Look” segment, Seth Meyers wanted to give beleaguered viewers a reality check. Noting that poll numbers show Donald Trump the most or second most unpopular president at this point in his term—trailing only term one Donald Trump—Meyers counseled that the news was intended to “just to help us feel a little more sane amidst the onslaught of bad news.”
Of course, for Meyers (and his audience who cheered wildly), Trump’s plummeting poll numbers and right hand man Elon Musk’s similarly nose-diving personal fortune are merely a slim lining of silver in the torrential storm of awfulness, but you take what you can get.
“That’s like me saying, ‘How dare you test my knowledge of modern rap?’ after I boldly proclaimed that the Kendrick/Drake feud is currently too close to call.'”
on press secretary karoline leavitt claiming offense after being fact-checked about trump’s tariffs
“That’s right, Elon Musk has lost billions of dollars. It’s gotten so bad, he can only afford to wear the one outfit. That’s why it always looks like he was dropped naked into a Hot Topic with only $80 to spend.”
“Although, you guys, that might just be because in Australia, Tesla is also the name of a weird, dangerous bird. [Australian accent] ‘I’d like to order a Tesla, please.’ ‘You don’t want one of those mate—two beaks, each one sharper than the next!'”
on Tesla sales dropping 70 percent in australia
“And also, I’m sorry, the home of Mad Max can’t be into electric cars. [Picture of Fury Road’s Immortan Joe] Nobody wants to see this guy screaming into a microphone, ‘Find me the nearest charging station!'”
But Donald Trump rushed to Musk’s rescue on Tuesday, allowing the automaker to position a selection of Teslas in the White House driveway for a photo op in which Trump openly pitched for people to buy the cars, and bought one himself.
“I have an idea. How about a vanity acronym. Something like Making Incredible Changes in Reviving the Office of the President.” [Photo of plate reading “MICRO P”]
on a reporter asking if trump will get a vanity plate
“You know, I give the man a hard time. But then he says something that really puts things in perspective. Because, when you really think about it, everything’s computers.”
on trump’s response, “Everything’s computer” upon seeing the tesla’s interior
“Sounds like a very lazy pitch for a sci-fi movie. ‘Guy’s in a coma, all right? He wakes up 30, 40 years later—everything’s computer.'”
“Yeah, a car is a golf cart that goes really fast. Is that how they have to explain things to Trump in the Situation Room? ‘Mister President, we’ve deployed a tactical battalion of F-16 fighter jets to the region.’ ‘And if I may step in, Mister President, the F-16 is like a golf cart with wings that shoots missiles.'”
on musk heard explaining that a car is like a golf cart
Meyers then segued to the arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student activist scooped up by ICE despite being a legal U.S. resident whose only non-crime was leading protests on behalf of Palestinians. As Meyers summed up this administration’s very different treatment of two outspoken immigrants, “This is how oligarchy works. If you’re favored by the regime, you get an infomercial paid for by taxpayers. But if you say something the regime doesn’t like, you get disappeared in the middle of the night without any due process or even an accusation of a crime.”
“Immigration agents arrested a legal permanent resident with a green card who is married to an American citizen without even charging him with a crime. Meanwhile, a guy who was actually convicted of 34 felony counts is currently palling around in a Tesla on the White House lawn.”
“Which is just a terrifying photo. It looks the the two kinds of men you see in Miami—a weird old businessman and a creep in sunglasses. ‘Hey ladies, you wanna check out my—it’s like a golf cart but faster.'”
on trump and musk posing inside trump’s new car
Stephen Colbert
Mirroring his Late Night colleague, the Late Show host focused first on “the toboggan ride to Skid Row” that are Trump’s economy-tanking tariffs, and the shaky justifications thereof from Trump and his allies.
He also did a little prop work, illustrating the costs of Trump’s aluminum tariffs by drinking his nightly beer out of a plastic bag that The Last Show plans to market under the label Sackweiser. Anything to get through the night.
“But today, Trump implemented a plan to quell fear of tariffs—with more tariffs. Now remember, you’ve gotta fight fire with setting our money on fire.”
“Aluminum? Foiled again!”
on new tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum
“That’s fine. We don’t need to send swimming pools to Canada. We know they’re just gonna freeze them and do a hockey on there.”
on retaliatory tariffs on american-made sports equipment and pools
“So kind. Just like those Hallmark cards, ‘Happy birthday to the dumbest grandson in history—and that’s being kind.'”
on the wall street journal claiming they were “being kind” when they called Trump’s trade war “the dumbest in history”
“Okay, he clearly only understands things in chickenomics. ‘America is the chicken, the money is the bucket, the market is coleslaw, and when you order a four-piece tenders combo, they give you Canada in a little cup.'”
on trump’s metaphor of a tariff-levying america being like a plucked chicken
“Yes, these tariffs are the most important things America has ever had. More important than the Declaration of Independence. More important than landing on the moon. More important than making the taco shell out of the Dorito.”
on Trump’s commerce secretary Howard Lutnick’s claims
“You know someone is lying when they use that big of a superlative about anything. ‘How was my Vegas trip with the boys? Honey, let me just say that no husband in the world has ever come back with less chlamydia.'”
“Oh, in that case, [puts on Groucho glasses] I think this is chaotic.”
on lutnick claiming anyone who thinks the trade war is chaos is “being silly”
Colbert also picked up on the detainment in Louisiana of Mahmoud Khalil. Addressing the ICE agents who whisked away a legal U.S. resident not accused of a crime to a remote prison site under ever-shifting pretenses, Colbert proclaimed, “Trump’s goons aren’t just jackbooted thugs, they’re also slow-witted doofs.”
“‘What? No student visa? Then we’re revoking your Sephora beauty insider card. No more free birthday samples for you, mister. Say hello to crow’s feet.'”
“Yes, if you don’t like that, you have a constitutional right to protest it. And, just by doing so, you could win a free trip to Louisiana! Laissez Les End Times Rouler!”
“So he’s going to arrest anyone who disagrees with him? Even me, John Oliver? Blimey!”
on trump calling the activist’s arrest “the first of many”
“If you think this will end with students, I’ve got a wall in Berlin to sell you.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel zeroed in on several different recent Trump administration actions, like Trump’s recent, frequently off-topic press conference alongside visiting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin on Wednesday.
“That’s his thing now. Any time a world leader shows up, right off the bat they have to apologize for whatever slight President Drama Queen has created in his head.”
“This feud with Rosie’s been going on longer than me and Matt Damon now.”
on a reporter asking about trump nemesis rosie O’donnel’s recent move to ireland
“Putin will get a back rub if he ever comes, but the Irish Prime Minister gets a stubby little finger in his face.”
Kimmel also was unsparing in criticizing Trump’s plan to abolish the Department of Education under newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
“Here’s a math problem, okay? If the Department of Education has 4,000 employees and the president cuts 50 percent of the workforce, how many edibles do I need to get through the next four years?”
“Could you imagine getting fired by the wife of the disgraced wrestling meathead? Don’t let the folding chair hit you on the way out.”
Jimmy Fallon
“Trump was asked who his favorite Irish person was and he said UFC fighter Conor McGregor. But you know his brain was like, ‘Is Ronald McDonald Irish or Scottish.'”
on trump’s meeting with the irish prime minister in advance of st. patrick’s day
“Today Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into the U.S., and the European Union retaliated with tariffs on beef, peanut butter, and whiskey. Or as it’s also known, the single dad food pyramid.”
“Trump just announced he’s firing 50 percent of the Department of Education. Even worse, Trump said, ‘Don’t worry, the other 60 percent will still have jobs.'”
“Over the past few weeks, the billionaires who attended Trump’s inauguration have lost a combined $209 billion dollars. Yeah, it’s been a wild time, Elon Musk lost $150 billion. Jeff Bezos lost $29 billion. And Mark Zuckerberg lost his mind.”
“It’s not that the Roomba sucked, it’s just that it didn’t suck enough.”
on the rumored end of the roomba
Taylor Tomlinson
Over on After Midnight, Taylor Tomlinson took time away from the world’s macro problems to dive back into her ongoing dissection of why, as a single woman in the dating scene, it is so very rough out there. First up, she revisited the woman who went viral for the bunk bed set-up she shares with her husband.
“Wow, straight couples really will do anything to ask, ‘Are you a top or a bottom?”
“Yeah, it’s nice. It looks as if Gwyneth Paltrow designed a prison cell.”
on the woman’s tricked-out new bunk beds
“This setup is great for when you’re married and you want to tell the world, ‘We really like it when people think we’re brother and sister.'”
“I do see the positives. You get a whole bed to yourselves, and if your partner snores, you can just kick ‘em from below like they’re your upstairs neighbors having a party.”
The host then went on to examine a recent article explaining the dynamic between single people and their child-having friends.
“Who is more isolated: people with children or people without? Ignoring the most important group of all, single hosts of late-night shows. Like, where’s my thinkpiece? I’m the only late-night host without a wife. That sucks.”
“I read my contract way too fast. I thought I was gonna get James Corden’s time slot and his wife.”
“But everybody needs support whether you have kids or not. Like, if I have to do peek-a-boo with your kid, you occasionally have to do peek-a-boo with the dumb guy I’m dating. ‘Where’s Kevin? Where’s Kevin? There he is! He’s on a dirtbike!'”
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