Seth Meyers: Trump's 'going to be our first nomad ex-president'
Seth Meyers
“It’s been a tough week for Donald Trump,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s Late Night, just two days after the electoral college certified Joe Biden’s victory. In the days since, Republican leaders such as Mitch McConnell congratulated the president-elect (“albeit way too late”, Meyers added), and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago neighbors asked the city of Palm Beach, Florida, to enforce a 90s legal agreement preventing the soon-to-be ex-president from making the resort his primary residence.
Given that New York isn’t keen to welcome him back either, Trump is “going to be our first nomad ex-president,”, Meyers said. “Remember how everyone made fun of Hillary Clinton for taking a walk in the woods once after she lost? Trump is going to have to live in the woods.”
“Trump’s ego has obviously taken a hit this week,” Meyers continued, “so his allies have come up with an idea to make him feel better: give him credit for the Covid vaccine he had nothing to do with.” Several Fox News hosts, including Jeanine Pirro and Geraldo Rivera, have called for the vaccine to be named after the president, while the Washington Post published an oped from a conservative columnist titled “giving Trump credit for the vaccine is the best way for Biden to unite the country”.
“Why should Trump get credit for the vaccine? What did he do besides say ‘we should make a vaccine?’” Meyers wondered. “Trump didn’t do anything. He’s like the guy standing on the sidewalk watching you parallel park.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert observed Mitch McConnell’s belated congratulations to president-elect Joe Biden following the electoral college vote. “Even McConnell has jumped ship – luckily, his waddle works as a flotation device,” he joked.
Colbert also discussed some “spicy” comment from Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon in an interview with Glamour Magazine: “The president-elect was able to connect with people over this sense of unity. In the primary, people would mock him, like, ‘You think you can work with Republicans?’” Dillon said, adding, “I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of fuckers. Mitch McConnell is terrible.”
“Ok, so there’s some kumbaya, but also a fair amount of ‘kiss my butt,’” Colbert joked. “Now, insulting your countrymen may seem like a bit of a strange way to bring people together, but Joe Biden wants to build a true big tent where everyone is welcome – the terrible people, the [bleeped], where the douche nozzle sits at the table of brotherhood next to the asshat, where the numnut holds hands with the jackhole, where the putz can raise his schmuck-faced children to be any kind of dillweed they want. That kind of outreach has to be in the presidential toolkit. Oh, also, Mitch McConnell is a tool.”
Samantha Bee
“The defeat of Donald Trump was supposed to bring us a little bit of peace at the end of the year,” said Samantha Bee on Full Frontal, “but because 2020 is the messiest of bitches, it decided to drag out our election for an extra two months, leaving America’s future to hinge on one state.”
That would be Georgia, where two runoff elections on 5 January will determine control of the US Senate. The state’s unusual run-off process, Bee explained, was invented as a “tricky little way of keeping black voters and their preferred candidates out of power”.
The runoff procedure was proposed in 1963 by segregationist Denmark Groover as a way to allow white voters, who usually split between multiple candidates, to consolidate in a rematch of plurality winners behind their preferred candidate, thus weakening black voters’ political power. “Essentially, he gentrified the ballots, and it’s still going on to this day, which explains by some of the voting machines now sell CBD foot cream,” Bee quipped.
Jokes aside, “it’s an understatement to say the results of the Georgia runoffs are important,” Bee continued. “The outcome will determine the balance of power in the Senate and whether or not Biden’s administration will be able to make good on its campaign promises.
“It could answer questions about the world we’ll live in,” she concluded. “Will we be able to improve healthcare? Will we invest in clean energy? Will America be able to continue providing the resources required for Taylor Swift to drop more surprise albums, or am I gonna have to take care of it personally like an Italian Renaissance patron?”
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel also discussed the president’s dwindling allies in his quest to remain in the White House, as even McConnell parted ways with his baseless refusal to accept the election results. “This is the part in the Emperor’s New Clothes where everyone starts noticing that maybe a testicle has appeared,” Kimmel joked.
And “even if old cheddar-in-charge does decide to hit the road, he may not have anywhere to go,” as residents of Palm Beach, Florida, have requested the city prevent Trump from declaring Mar-a-Lago his private residence.
“What an interesting turn of events,” Kimmel marveled. “This started with Donald Trump’s father, who made his fortune evicting people from their homes, now it ends with his son getting evicted from not one but two houses in one month.
“In other words, God exists and has a very good sense of humor about all this.”