Seth Meyers on the abortion ruling: conservatives ‘always have to play the victim’
On Wednesday night, late-night hosts condemned the leaked supreme court draft opinion to overturn Roe v Wade, and how Republican lawmakers focused on the leak itself and not the dire consequences of the decision. “It won’t surprise you to learn that even as they appear poised to shred the fundamental rights of tens of millions of women and reap the biggest political victory in 50 years, conservatives are still whining and casting themselves as victims because of the leak,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
Meyers mocked Fox News hosts who referred to the leak as an “insurrection” of the court. “The fact that they’re all freaking out about the leak instead of celebrating the victory is telling,” he said.
“It underscores yet again that even at the height of their powers, these people always have to play the victim. If they win a free car on Wheel of Fortune they’d immediately start whining ‘but I already have two cars in my garage, I don’t have space for a brand new Stingray, this is so unfair!’
“Do all these pundits whining about the leak really think this is what will shatter the integrity of the court?” he added.
“Not the fact that Republicans stole a seat from President Obama, or the fact several of their nominees apparently lied to the Senate about their positions on Roe, or the fact that one of them called opposition to his nomination based on credible sexual assault allegations a ‘smear campaign’ orchestrated by shadowy leftwing groups and the Clintons?”
“I could go on, so I will,” Meyers continued, tearing through a laundry list of conservatives discrediting the court. “The fact they rushed through another nominee a little over a week before the election, whose ceremony turned out to be a super-spreader event, and who posed for a political photo op with the president after her confirmation.
“Or the fact that another justice declined to recuse himself from a case that potentially involved text messages sent by his wife that would reveal her involvement in attempts to overthrow the presidential election and install Donald Trump as an unelected autocrat. Or the fact that one of them got caught flushing a toilet during an oral argument conducted via telephone?”
Regardless of the final text of the ruling, he added, “this is the culmination of a decades-long effort by conservatives to turn the court into a political weapon and aim it straight at abortion rights.”
Trevor Noah
“Many people are horrified” after Monday’s leaked opinion, said Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. “Not that women and half the country would lose their rights over their own bodies, but rather that this information got leaked. Which is weird. It’s like running around the deck of the Titanic trying to find out who yelled ‘We’re sinking!’ instead of focusing on the iceberg.”
Chief Justice John Roberts has announced an immediate investigation to identify the leaker. “But cable news doesn’t have time to wait around,” Noah said, queueing up clips of speculation from various news channels.
“Yes, it was a leftwing antifa law clerk trying to sabotage the court!” he mocked. “Or it was a rightwing Magahead trying to lock the decision in place. Or, maybe, it was the butler. It’s always the butler!
“But while everyone on regular cable channels was playing the least horny version of Knives Out, Newsmax had already cracked the case” by blaming, with zero evidence, recently appointed justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Look at you, using the tried and true investigative technique of ‘The black person did it!’” Noah joked.
Stephen Colbert
“Of course, after years of packing the supreme court with the expressed intention of overturning Roe v Wade, Republicans in Congress took a victory lap,” said Stephen Colbert over a video of silent tumbleweeds. “Oh, right, I forgot. They’re cowards, cause they know it’s really unpopular, so they didn’t talk about the actual decision. Instead, Republicans focused on the unprecedented nature of the leak itself.
“Look, I can understand the argument that this leak is bad for the institution of the supreme court,” said the Late Show host. “But come on, do you think that waiting to release it this summer was going to make it a hot beach read? ‘Your body, his choice?’”
Colbert homed in on the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, who urged people to “concentrate on what the news is today, not a leaked draft but the fact that the draft was leaked”.
“Mitch, is everything OK in the old squirrel cage? You been snacking on paint chips? Because you’re ignoring the important part,” Colbert said. “You’re like a husband getting a ransom note – ‘Oh my God! Look at all the letters they cut out of a magazine! They’ve ruined my collection of National Geographics.’
“As usual, Fox News was committed to not reporting the news,” he added, “and instead reporting spin that the leaked draft was somehow a win for
Democrats.” To quote former Trump adviser and Fox News pundit Kellyanne Conway: “It’s very curious to me that the Democrats weren’t talking about it until today.
“Typically people wait until something happens to talk about it,” Colbert retorted. “Nobody on the Titanic was complaining about icebergs when they left the harbor.”