Weds Night Monologues: Vladdy Are You Okay?

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.

Who You Gonna Call? Vlad Putin!

(Admit it, you can hear the tune in your head. You’re welcome.) Yes, Donald Trump’s fondness for—not to say slavish fealty to—Russian dictator and defenestration enthusiast Vladimir Putin is long a thing of late-night monologue zingers. You know, how Trump called Putin a “genius” for invading Ukraine. Or when Trump praised Putin for cracking down on Russia’s free press, dreamily wishing he could also jail, persecute, and occasionally toss out of windows his own pesky fact-checkers. Or when he claimed that the authoritarian murderer leading a kleptocratic police state in Russia was a better President than Barack Obama. Look, the list is long and well documented by journalists who are definitely not on Donald Trump’s secret “chuck them off a building” to-do list for a second term.

But this one really takes the medovik.

Back in 2020, when all of beleaguered, terrified, pandemic-panicked Americans were desperate for Covid testing so that they might actually feel safe enough to wave at their parents from within shouting distance, Donald Trump sent a number of then-precious Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines to none other that his buddy Vlad. As Seth Meyers laid out in a particularly damning A Closer Look segment Wednesday, this happened simultaneously with then President Trump scolding Americans for asking for more Covid testing, playing clips of Trump bemoaning the fact that, everywhere he turned, desperate Americans were begging him for exactly the sort of sophisticated diagnostic materials he was sending to Russia.

Oh, and according to journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book about the chaos that was the Trump administration, some of Trump’s most belligerent mockery of all this “overrated” Covid testing took place on the exact same day (May 7, 2020) that he rush-delivered pal Vladdy the machines. (Woodward also noted that Trump has had as many as seven unreported phone conversations with Putin since leaving office, which is a clear illegal violation of the Logan Act, if anyone in the Justice Department under Merrick Garland actually gives a crap any more.)

It’s the sort of revelation (since backed up by the freaking Kremlin, of all entities) that would have ended a political career. Especially of a candidate whose whole schtick is “America First” (with its inevitable side-salad of xenophobia and racism). But this is America 2024, and all late-night comedians can do is make their little jokes in the vain hope that anyone in the MAGA votership actually still gives a crap about anything but Donald Trump as unassailable avatar of their own worst natures.

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“Oh my God, he’s going to have to change his campaign slogan to, ‘America! But First…'”

seth meyers

“Donald Trump is denying right now an absolutely unbelievable report about his close and inappropriate relationship with Sugar Vladdy Putin.” 

jimmy kimmel

[On the 2020 chaos surrounding the unavailability of rapid Covid testing] “How would that even help with contact tracing? ‘Hey Steve, remember when we went for a walk 14 days ago? Well it turns out I had Covid eight days ago. You should probably get tested two days ago. And when you get your results back in 10 days you should call anyone you were with 32 days ago, which is 22 days from today.'” 

seth meyers

“We all remember those days when the only way we could safely spend time with family was to get tested first. So you’d go to the pharmacy and wait in line for three hours so you could get a swab shoved up into your brain stem by someone who definitely hadn’t been trained on how to do it properly. They’d come at you like an old woman with a broom trying to get a bird out of their attic.”

seth meyers

[After 2020 clips of Trump complaining about Americans’ daily demands for Covid testing] “Man, it’s like he had to be President every day! Sounds like a dickhead who buys a houseplant, waters it once, and then wonders why it died.”

seth meyers

[On Trump’s perennially crude former UFC-affiliated spokesperson Steven Cheung, who said Woodward’s book should be used as “toilet tissue”] “He looks like a pug made a wish to work at a car dealership.”

jimmy kimmel

[After a montage of Trump claiming that the real problem with the pandemic was all that darn testing] “Tests don’t create cases just like smoke alarms don’t create fires.” 

seth meyers

[After Trump’s V.P. pick J.D. Vance asked what the big deal is if Trump engaged in secret negotiations with Putin as a private citizen] “Yes, it’s very wrong to have chats with dictators who are trying to exterminate our allies when you aren’t the President any more. Same reason you don’t throw a birthday party for Diddy, okay?” 

jimmy kimmel

He’s Only Vice-Creepy

Sure, J.D. Vance might be an unqualified puppet of a couple of genuine fascists hand-picked to be the second-in-command to another fascist, but…well, there’s not much to add to that.

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[On Vance’s 2016 prediction that Trump’s MAGA minions would just get over Trump’s election loss without resorting to violence] “Good call, Nostradumbass.” 

jimmy kimmel

“We are less than 26 days away from the election. That’s less than one menstrual cycle according to the period app J.D. Vance is secretly tracking you with.” 

jordan klepper

[On Vance’s hurriedly deleted tweets criticizing Trump for demonizing immigrants and calling Trump “reprehensible”] “I’m old enough to remember when politicians used to be ashamed to be exposed as hypocrites. Remember the term flip-flop? He’s a flip-flopper? It used to be the worst thing you could say. Now flip-flops are just terrible shoes you wear to the beach.”

jimmy kimmel

‘Til Death Do Us Grift

With Melania Trump’s memoir hitting shelves this week, the former First Lady has been making the conservative media rounds to promote her product while grimacing through interviews that studiously avoid the fact that she has clearly checked out of her marriage to a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, twice-impeached seditionist, and guy who scarfs down bulging sacks of fast food before bed. (Fox News also hasn’t asked her questions about why she had to be paid a quarter of a million dollars to make a rare campaign speaking appearance, something First Ladies whose husbands are running for office generally throw in as a freebie.)

Still, as Jordan Klepper posited, there’s a bond in the Trump’s marriage stronger than whether a serial cheater and his third trophy wife can actually stand to be in the same room together.

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“Now obviously she’s out there because she’s a supportive wife who believes in her husband’s America First—I’m f**king with you. She has a book to sell.”

jordan klepper

“You know, people make a lot of jokes about this marriage, but when I look at their shared love of exploiting our political system to sell sh*t for personal profit, I just see two soulmates.”

jordan klepper

[After reading a particularly stilted account of the Trumps’ election night banter] “That is a heartwarming moment that definitely wasn’t created by Chat GPT.”

jORDAN klepper

“Turns out writing is hard when you don’t have Michelle Obama to plagiarize from.”

jordan klepper

Kamala-Mentum

Meanwhile, in news from the campaign of a presidential candidate who isn’t secretly conspiring with deeply problematic world leaders and spreading damaging lies about a series of natural disasters…

[On Kamala Harris’ record donations since announcing for President a few months ago] “Harris raised a billion dollars. Yeah, now you’re allowed to text her for donations.” 

jimmy fallon

[On Trump nepo hire and RNC co-chair Lara Trump pooh-poohing Trump’s sagging polls because of the notes people allegedly pass her on airplanes] “Right, if you poll the beverage-napkin-signing community, he’s way on top.”

jimmy kimmel

“A recent poll showed that [Harris] has recently taken a lead over Trump with America’s oldest voters. Yeah, apparently that billion dollars were all quarters found behind her ear.”

jimmy fallon

[On Trump dodging CNN’s final debate request, which Harris readily agreed to] “I don’t think Trump wants to do it. CNN suggested October 23rd, and then Trump suggested Octember the 50th.” 

jimmy fallon

Flooding the Zone

With only four late-night monologists tasked with covering the daily torrent of horrible, ludicrous, or ludicrously horrible news blasting us in the collective face on an eventful Wednesday (Stephen Colbert only returned from break last night because Kamala Harris wanted to stop by), there isn’t always a ton of thematic overlap. These poor guys are just stretched too thin, everybody. So here’s a smattering of topicality from the nightly monologue hose.

[On Hurricane Milton] “They say Milton could be a storm for the history books. If the state of Florida still had history books, which they do not.” 

jimmy kimmel

[On porn websites running PSA’s about the censorship dangers of Trump and Vance’s Project 2025] “Yes, my favorite porn category, Informational PSA.”

jordan klepper

“If you ask me though, the big problem with these ads is that they’re running them before the porn video starts. You really should run them after the porn videos when there’s clarity of mind. That’s when I write my holiday cards.” 

jORDAN klepper

[On those ads calling out conservatives’ claim to care about women being exploited by bringing up their silence on testicular torture videos] “I will say it’s strangely comforting to know that there are things on the internet that even porn stars look at and go, ‘Man, what the f**k?'”

jordan klepper

[On Eric Trump being made a sheriff’s deputy in Florida] “This’ll be the first time during a traffic stop where the cop says, ‘Do you know who my father is?'”

jimmy kimmel

“How great would it be if they make him arrest his father for the stolen documents at Mar-a-Lago? ‘Guess you’ll finally have time for my little league games now, dad.'” 

jimmy kimmel

[Following up on Melania’s revelation that Trump sleeps naked [pause for that image to sink in], Klepper played clips of loathsome Trump advisor Stephen Miller claiming that being a Trump supporter is a real turn-on for women] “Fox, I gotta say I’m worried about you. You already had to pay 780 million dollars for lying to your audience but this could be the one that bankrupts you. I mean come on, I do believe Stephen Miller is a real ladykiller, but more in a ‘check the basement’ kind of way.”

jordan klepper

[On equally punchable Fox News figure Jesse Watters calling Miller “a sexual matador”] “Is that because he’s literally a walking red flag?” 

jordan klepper

Potpourri

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[On Halloween] “This year the most popular costume is Beetlejuice, and the most popular couple’s costume is annoying.” 

jimmy fallon

“A traffic camera in Germany caught someone speeding while wearing a Cookie Monster costume. Today he pleaded ‘Me not guilty.'”

jimmy fallon

“Uber is now offering shuttle rides from Manhattan to Laguardia Airport for $18. That’s right, Uber has finally invented the bus.”

jimmy fallon

“More than 129 thousand Ram trucks are being recalled due to faulty turn signals. Meanwhile, Kia is like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—your cars turn?'”

jimmy fallon

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