Screenshot: ABC
If anyone was looking for a rollicking good time, or just some light-hearted sugarcoating about the 2024 election from America’s top late-night comedians, they would have been better served going to bed early Wednesday night.
The hosts who have been forthrightly adversarial, usually in the most vituperative ways, about the renewed presidential aspirations of Donald Trump were just as forthrightly depressed, disgusted, and dismayed by his victory.
Stephen Colbert on CBS’s Late Show: “I do know we’re going to be governed by a monstrous child surrounded by cowards and grifters.”
Taylor Tomlinson on CBS’s After Midnight: “Let’s go bury democracy.”
Seth Meyers on NBC’s Late Night: “I don’t think Donald Trump is a good person; I’d go so far as to say he’s a bad person. In my defense I’m only basing this on everything I’ve ever been taught about what makes someone good or bad.”
Jimmy Kimmel on ABC: “Let’s be honest, it was a terrible night last night.”
There was no backing down in terms of opinions about the President-Elect. If anything, the mood was marked less by comedy than open defiance—with a little dash of concern about what the future might mean for hosts already targeted by Trump who has promised widely to be an instrument of retribution.
Kimmel’s cold open saw him packing up his office getting ready to leave the country. Tomlinson said she was “honored to be on television when women are still allowed to be.”
Colbert cited how the Wall Street Journal had noted that in his first term Trump was unable to put many of his threats into practice because of his short attention span. He said that might be a ray of hope in terms of his promises this time. “They might have promised to put immigrants into camps but he doesn’t have the concentration.” (Big “WHOA!” from audience.)
In his monologue Kimmel said, “We’ll see how funny all this is in six months when the great talk show host round-up begins.”
This was not a happy group.
Kimmel, who has drawn more wrath from Trump than any other host, performed an especially long monologue last night. He talked about his seven-year-old son Billy (who played a central role in the saving of the Affordable Care Act) coming down to breakfast yesterday morning, learning Trump had won and delivering a single word of comment: “F*CK!”
As he has on some previous occasions when the moment gets heavy and serious, Kimmel delivered a brutal and highly emotional slagging of Trump and what his election win means.
“It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands hard-working immigrants who make the country go…”
And then he said; “Uh-oh,” because he was about to struggle to hold his composure. “For health care,” he continued after a brief pause to collect himself. “For our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech, for the middle-class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO, for the truth, for democracy and decency. It was a terrible night for anyone who voted against him and it was a bad night for anyone who voted for him too. You just don’t realize it yet.”
A running theme across several shows were scatological jokes, specifically about people getting diarrhea from the election news. There were jokes about that on The Daily ShowColbert and Kimmel. Colbert mentioned that people have suggested to him, “Come on, part of you has gotta want Trump to win because he gives you so much material to work with.”
“No,” Colbert said, “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!”
Because they are all true believers in fighting despair, each of the hosts gave their audiences some sort of pep talk to round out the diatribes. Most of them found some way to urge their like-minded viewers not to give up, keep up the fight.
From Seth Meyers: “The fight for justice can’t end with one election.”
From Stephen Colbert; “We can take comfort in knowing we’ve been here before.”
But the hosts left no doubt: they are preparing to saddle up, grab a lance, and get the lethal jousting going again, ready to take on people Kimmel described as “the wriggling brain worms who sold what’s left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump.”
