Several American late night show hosts on Thursday, 5 November, called out US President Donald Trump on his address from the White House, in which he claimed once again without evidence that the Democrats were stealing the election and that he had easily won “if you only count the legal votes”.
Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Late Show host Stephen Colbert delivered a speech in which he hit out at Trump, who he said “walked into the White House briefing room and tried to poison American democracy”.
Colbert explained that he was dressed in black “for a funeral,” because “Donald Trump tried really hard to kill something tonight.”
“True story: I’m wearing black tonight because I was getting dressed this afternoon and I thought, he might try some shenanigans and it might be fitting to tell jokes while wearing something somber if he goes down that dark path,” Colbert said.
“I’m no prophet – it’s just that he’s so predictable,” he added.
Colbert also pointed out the ridiculousness of the claim that Democratic nominee had stolen the election out from under Trump’s nose in Republican states like Arizona and Georgia “while coordinating with Democratic states like Pennsylvania and Nevada and Wisconsin and Michigan”.
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon
On The Tonight Show , Jimmy Fallon joked: “Yep, nothing is definite, but the outcome feels pretty inevitable right now. Vladimir Putin is like, ‘Oh well, you rig some, you lose some.’”
In a series of digs at President Trump and the GOP’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, he made sure to point out that Joe Biden was wearing a mask, while Trump wasn’t.
“At this very moment Biden is smiling from ear to ear, atleast I think he is, because he’s wearing a mask!”
Fallon also joked that Trump’s staff could be happier than Biden’s with the expected outcome of the election race.
“I’m not saying Trump is in trouble, but he was just sent straight to voicemail by the My Pillow guy,” Fallon said, referring to MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell, who is a major Trump supporter.
Referring to all the lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign in various states along with the threat of filing more as well as going to the Supreme Court, Fallon said, “Of course he’s suing. I get the feeling when Trump didn’t get the Christmas gift he wanted as a kid he was like, ‘Better lawyer up, Nana.’”
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
On his show, Jimmy Kimmel said, “The race being so close in Georgia was a big surprise, but Pennsylvania – the reason Joe Biden is strong in Pennsylvania, a state that voted Republican last time, is because he’s from there and they know him.”
“It’s the same reason Trump lost New York,” Kimmel added.
Kimmel, too, took digs at the piling legal challenges being issued by the Trump campaign, “And let the lawsuits begin. I really cannot think of a more fitting ending to this presidency than him suing America.”
On the president’s incessant demands that the counting be stopped, Kimmel quipped, “Here’s a compromise: How about they count the votes and then they stop counting the votes, like the old days.”
“At 9:12 this morning the soon-to-be-former president tweeted, ‘Stop the count!’ And I guess nobody listened, because half an hour later he retweeted his own tweet: ‘Stop the count! Why are they still counting? I tweeted twice to stop.’ He also wrote, ‘Stop the fraud,’ which should have been a note to self.”Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The Daily Show
“President Donald ‘Just-a-Minute’ Trump is in more trouble than the guy who kidnapped Liam Neeson’s daughter, because all day Joe Biden has been slowly chipping away at Trump’s lead in Georgia, while also cleaning up as mail-in ballots are counted in Pennsylvania,” Daily Show host Trevor Noah said, as he opened his monologue.
Noah was referring to the famous dialogue by Neeson’s character in the hit film series ‘Taken’.
“When Hillary lost, she disappeared into the woods, but Trump starts losing, he’s dragging voters one by one onto the witness stand, although knowing Trump, he’s probably just hustling for a big settlement,” Noah said, as he poked fun at the Trump campaign’s strategy of filing lawsuits and lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s expression of a plan to file a national lawsuit.
‘I’m suing because I should be president, that’s why I’m here – but for 500 grand we can forget this whole thing ever happened. Three hundred thousand. Two hundred and fifty, my final offer. Fifty thousand. I’ll pay you, but only $20. Art of the deal,” Noah added in mimicry of Trump.
This isn’t the first time since polling ended that the late show hosts talked about various aspects of the heated election. On Wednesday, several hosts urged patience as the ballot-counting process remained underway, testing the patience of many and also criticised Trump’s demands to stop the vote.
Colbert joked that he would keep the same set up for a while as it’s “going to take a while to count the votes.”
Meanwhile, Noah reportedly said, “It’s insane that an American President is demanding that they stop counting votes while he’s ahead. This is a textbook authoritarian move, which is impressive coming from a guy who has never read a textbook.”
“This is deeply dangerous authoritarian behaviour and a major test for the national media. If he had his way, he’d get to personally sift through every ballot and cross out Biden’s name,” said Seth Meyers, who hosts the Late Night show.
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