Seth Meyers on House speaker drama: ‘Nothing good happens after midnight on a Friday’
Seth Meyers
After four days of drama, a far-right inter-Republican rebellion and 15 votes, Kevin McCarthy was finally elected speaker of the House at 12.29am on Saturday morning. “Generally speaking, that is not the sign of a healthy democracy,” said Seth Meyers on Monday evening on the marathon voting session that stretched into the night. “Nothing good happens after midnight on a Friday. If you’re that old and you’re up after midnight, you’re probably drunk and buying something real dumb off QVC.”
The Late Night host then returned to his favorite target of the past week, McCarthy, who, “after acquiescing to the demands of the most extreme members off his caucus”, told reporters he was confident in his victory “because I count”.
“Oh? Can you?” Meyers laughed. “Because the only person in that chamber that I trust to count is this lady,” he said in reference to the House clerk, Cheryl Johnson, who presided over all 15 votes. “It’s not exactly confidence-inspiring when you’re trying to become second in line to the presidency and your big brag is that you share a skill with a muppet.”
McCarthy, it turns out, couldn’t count; following yet another vote stymied by a far-right faction of his party, the California congressman confronted his nemesis, Matt Gaetz, leading to a near-physical braw after the Alabama congressman Mike Rogers had to be restrained by his face from attacking Gaetz.
“It’s like watching a British nature documentary about those jacked kangaroos who fight for dominance,” Meyers explained, affecting a British accent: “This is quite a sight to behold: the alpha male is approaching his rival with his chest puffed out. And wait, what’s this? The alpha male is begging with his rival to please be nice to him. Quite a humiliating spectacle. And now a third kangaroo, described by his friends as a drunken redneck has entered the fray and is being restrained by his face.”
Stephen Colbert
“All good things must come to an end,” said Stephen Colbert of McCarthy’s election as speaker early on Saturday morning, “a time famous for good decisions”, he joked. “All right, we just elected a new speaker – I’m going to drunk-dial my ex and eat this week-old sushi.
“I don’t know if men should hold political office, they’re just too emotional,” he deadpanned over the tense confrontation between McCarthy and Gaetz.
McCarthy eventually celebrated his victory with a pained grin and the speaker’s gavel, or “showing his party what they get to spend the next two years repeatedly banging his nutsack with”, Colbert joked.
Speaking to reporters, the new speaker tried to frame the dysfunction as a positive: “because it took this long, now we know how to govern”.
“Really? Just this last week you learned how to govern?” Colbert marveled. “There are some things you shouldn’t learn through trial and error at the last minute. That’s like a surgeon saying, ‘Well, it took me 15 tries to open my Capri-Sun, but this triple bypass should be a snap. Now, where’s the piece of foil on your chest where I poke the straw.’”
Colbert also recapped an insurrection attempt in Brazil clearly modeled on January 6 in the US. Before this “deja-coup”, allies of the ousted Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro met with some of Trump’s advisers, including Steve Bannon. “Oh no, Steve Bannon has gone Brazilian? Regular Steve Bannon was bad enough, no one wants to see him in a thong,” Colbert quipped.
His graphics department did create an image of Bannon in a thong, Colbert added, but “the CBS lawyers told us that broadcasting it would violate the Geneva conventions.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel called McCarthy’s election as speaker “the political equivalent of handing your kid an iPad to shut him up”.
The House drama “got so out of control I thought I was watching the Oscars at one point”, he quipped.
The host also responded to another round of roasting from the former president, who posted on Truth Social: “Wow, those TRUMP Hating Late Night Network ‘Shows’ are doing really badly … The worst ratings that those time slots have had …”
“… Says the guy posting to no one on Truth Social,” Kimmel retorted.
Trump also wondered if the Democratic National Committee paid the salaries of hosts like Kimmel, whom he called “untalented fools”.
“You know, you think being the father of Eric and Don Jr, he’d have more sympathy for untalented fools,” said Kimmel. “And as far as how much money we make, yeah we do make a lot of money. You know what we do with that money? Pay taxes on it.
“And while we’re on the subject of low ratings – yours are lower than the wall you never built.”