Seth Meyers on orgygate: ‘One of the weirdest political scandals in recent memory’
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers discussed the recent allegations from 26-year-old Republican Madison Cawthorn, who claimed he has been invited to orgies by fellow Washington politicians, and witnessed cocaine use – something the host called “one of the weirdest political scandals in recent memory”.
During a podcast interview, the rightwing congressman expressed shock that politicians he had once looked up to had invited him to a “sexual get-together”. Meyers called Cawthorn the “first dude with a backwards baseball cap that calls it a sexual get-together”.
He joked that it sounded less like some debauched orgy and more like “the plot of The Ice Storm”.
Republicans have been angered by this “bizarre and shocking allegation” – even those “accustomed to a certain level of awfulness from fellow Republicans”. It has led to outrage from his peers and reportedly their spouses.
This week has also seen Donald Trump accused of using burner phones during the January 6 riot to maintain privacy. He has claimed to not know what a burner phone is. “Dude, you worked in New York real estate for decades. I bet every phone he used was a burner phone,” Meyers said.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has claimed that the ex-president is lying, as he has used them before and spoken of them. Meyers said Trump has always gone overboard with his defence. “It’s like if your parents say they found weed in your sock drawer and you say, ‘What the hell is a sock?’” he joked.
Meyers said the party is consumed by its own conspiracy theories, and focusing more on Cawthorn’s lurid stories than the fact that they are missing seven hours of Trump’s call logs during
an insurrection.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert noted that it’s been five weeks since the start of Russia’s failed invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s advisers have apparently been deliberately misinforming him of the situation, claiming more of a victory.
“Putin is clearly a victim of his own pro-Russian propaganda,” he said. “He doesn’t even know that Russia lost Rocky IV. Over there it’s an eightminute film called Ivan Drago Strong Good.”
Russia has also banned Instagram and Colbert joked that this has led to no brunch grams, which “violates international law and the international house of pancakes”.
It has also led to Russian influencers struggling to make money. “Influencers have no other marketable skills,” Colbert said. “What are they gonna do? Go door-to-door to make people feel bad about not having a thigh gap?”
This week has also seen an investigation launched into Will Smith’s onstage slap on Chris Rock. The Academy has said it is important to protect the integrity of the institution.
“And it is so important to protect the integrity of the Academy,” Colbert said before coughing out the names of Roman Polanski, Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein.
He said that the Academy is “ready to dole out the pain”, which might involve Smith being forced to watch “a double-bill of Hitch and The Legend of Bagger Vance”.
He then took time to criticise the hiring of ex-Trump official Mick Mulvaney by CBS News, given that they will now be colleagues. He referred to Mulvaney as “Nostra-dumbass” for his awful predictions and a “craven toadie to a tyrant”.