Late-night hosts discuss Republicans’ vain hopes that Donald Trump will “stick to his message” and a federal Labor Department indictment brought over his interview with Elon Musk.
Seth Meyers
On Thursday night, Seth Meyers mocked Republicans who hope Trump will change the tone of his campaign to win over voters. This mindset was best summed up by former Trump rival Nikki Haley on Fox News: “The campaign is not going to win by talking about crowd sizes. It’s not going to win by talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win by talking about how stupid she is. You can’t win by talking about those things. Americans are smart. Treat them like that.”
“You can’t treat them like smart people if you’re not smart yourself, you know?” the late-night host replied. “You know how stupid people treat smart people? They stuff them in lockers.”
“Do you think notorious idiot Donald Trump is suddenly going to be able to have a smart conversation with voters? He’s a guy who thinks windmills cause cancer, people should inject bleach to cure Covid, and electric boat batteries will lead to shark attacks,” he continued. “He actually said that. Even the sharks were like, ‘Um, maybe we shouldn’t eat this guy. I think he’s gone evil.’
“What you want is impossible,” he added. “Trump is a 78-year-old narcissist. He’s the old man in the race now, and old men don’t change.”
“Trump is unable to stick to his message,” he said. “Any message, both because he acts impulsively and because he has no message.” Case in point: Trump’s recent rally, where he tried to talk about the economy and demonstrate inflation with two different-sized boxes of Tic Tacs, “like a drunken magician at a five-year-old’s birthday party.”
Meyers also disparaged the former president for his interview with Elon Musk, CEO of X, formerly Twitter, in which he praised the billionaire for (illegally) firing striking workers. “You know, I owe Trump an apology,” Meyers began. “I used to think he was an Olympic-level idiot, but I was wrong. Only a genius chess master and Jedi wizard would hold a conference call on a dying app with a South African vampire and, after a 40-minute delay, brag about how great it is to fire people during an election campaign whose main issue is jobs. He sounded, it should be noted, like a cross between Jerry Lewis and Sylvester the Cat. Was he wearing those Halloween fangs yet? Was it just a mouthful of Tic Tacs?
“Just take a second to understand how disgusting this is: two billionaire ghouls laughing at each other about firing workers for exercising their legally protected right to strike,” he added. The United Auto Workers (UAW) then filed a federal labor lawsuit against Musk and Trump, alleging they intimidated and threatened workers.
UAW President Shawn Fain called Trump a “strikebreaker” on CNN. “It’s true, he is a strikebreaker – he looks like someone scratched him and the wound didn’t heal properly,” Meyers joked.
Stephen Colbert
And on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert looked ahead to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week. The atmosphere is energetic; one attendee told the New York Times: “It used to be a wake, now it’s Mardi Gras.”
“Yes, it will be Carnival – but don’t ask Chuck Schumer how he got all those pearls,” Colbert joked.
At the convention, dubbed “Dem-palooza” by some, Democrats are trying to “spread good vibes” by handing out friendship bracelets and campaign training at the city’s convention center and offering free manicures. “It’s nice,” Colbert said. “They’re going to sell democracy with spa treatments. Bernie Sanders will be there handing out Brazilian hair straighteners — ‘OK, now get ready, because when I’m done, only the top 1% will be left.'”
Joe Biden will speak Monday night and then “hand over the keys” so the event can focus on Harris. “That’s so wonderful,” Colbert said. “It’s always better when the older people hand over the keys voluntarily. Otherwise you have to put Benadryl in the pudding.”
“While we may have gotten used to Kamala being the nominee — or the Kamala nominee — the change has thrown convention organizers completely off track,” Colbert continued. Party planners typically have months to plan the week’s political choreography. “It’s true — it took them almost a month at the Republican convention to completely blow up Matt Gaetz’s face,” Colbert joked, referring to the Florida congressman’s alleged use of facial fillers.
