Late Night Laughs: Around the White House

Candidate Oprah?

Anybody see last night’s episode of Oprah? Now, some people are calling it the Golden Globes. It was easily one of the most powerful, moving, meaningful nights of beautiful millionaires giving each other trophies. And Oprah gave a speech that was moving, even for Oprah. People were immediately calling the speech presidential. And a year ago, I would have agreed. But these days it plays a little coherent. — Stephen Colbert

The stars gathered in Los Angeles for the Golden Globes. Oprah Winfrey delivered a speech so powerful that all day long people have been asking if Oprah will run for president — which at this point, wouldn’t president be a demotion for Oprah? — Jimmy Kimmel

But this could be a big story. In fact, two of Oprah’s close friends say that she’s thinking about running in 2020. While two of Trump’s close friends said, “Please don’t refer to us as Trump’s close friends.” — Jimmy Fallon

Can you imagine Oprah as president? Can you imagine? You thought Bernie Sanders wanted to give a lot of stuff away. “You get health insurance. You get health insurance. You don’t get deported. You don’t get deported. You won’t get deported.” — James Corden

But after the reaction last night, Republicans were outraged when they heard about this. They were like you cannot just elect a billionaire TV star with no political experience … — James Corden

But a note of caution: Do we really want to elect another billionaire TV star? Granted, this one is actually a billionaire and actually a TV star. — Stephen Colbert

That said, one of the things that inspires me most about Oprah is that I believe she’s reasonable enough to consider the possibility that being a billionaire TV star doesn’t necessarily qualify you to have the launch codes. Then again, if we did go toe to toe with North Korea, I bet she could calm Kim Jong-un down just by helping him lose weight. “It’s a point system. It’s all points, right? You can eat anything you want! I love pasta! I love kimchi! I love all of it!” — Stephen Colbert

President Trump was asked about Oprah running for president, and he said that he would defeat her. But then another guy said, [Putin] “Donald, there is only so much I can do for you. I mean, it’s OPRAH!” — Jimmy Fallon

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said yesterday that Oprah Winfrey does not have enough political experience to run for president. I don’t know what he said next, but it had to be “Why is everybody laughing?” — Seth Meyers

Cabinet meeting

President Trump had his first Cabinet meeting of the year today, where — and you’re not going to believe this — he took time out to boast about the media’s reaction to his bipartisan meeting yesterday with members of Congress. [clip of Trump] “Got great reviews by everybody other than two networks who were phenomenal for about two hours. Then after that, they were called by their bosses, ‘Oh, wait a minute.’ And unfortunately, a lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed.” Really? A lot of those anchors sent you letters saying it was one of the greatest meetings ever? I bet the handwriting on those letters looks a lot like Kellyanne Conway’s. — Jimmy Kimmel

College football

The College Football National Championship game was last night. And President Donald Trump made an appearance. Now, after months of criticizing football players for taking knees, the president finally got the chance to stand for the national anthem. But some people noticed that Trump may not know all the words. [shows clip of Trump appearing to fumble the lyrics] He looks like a guy who just jumped onstage at a karaoke bar to sing “Despacito,” and then suddenly remembered he can’t speak Spanish. — James Corden

In Trump’s defense, it’s hard to sing a song while you’re also trying to compose tweets in your head. — James Corden

The Alabama Crimson Tide rallied from, I think, 13 points to beat Georgia in overtime to win their fifth national title in nine years. [shows clip of winning touchdown] The kid who threw that pass is the backup quarterback. His name is Tua Tagovailoa, I believe. What a game he had. The state of Alabama hasn’t seen a freshman scramble like that since Roy Moore visited a local high school. — Jimmy Kimmel