Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert had a plan for his Late Show monologue on Thursday evening, but “literally three minutes” before he took the stage, the New York Times reported that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict Donald Trump over hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election. “He was right: we’re finally saying Merry Christmas again!” the host cheered.
“I didn’t know if this was going to be coming, I thought maybe it would never come,” he continued. “I used to think, ah, what does it matter if it came. I didn’t know it would feel this good.
“This is good news for everybody, even him! He now gets to join his J6 prison choir,” Colbert joked. “He should see whether that grand jury will cut him a check for $130,000, because he is so screwed.”
Colbert also touched on the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News, which has demonstrated “proof that Fox knew that if they told the truth and exposed the former president’s lies, they would alienate their co-dependent viewers”, he explained. One document from the lawsuit shows the CEO of Fox News condemning a reporter who fact-checked Trump’s election fraud lies on air, writing in an email: “This has to stop now. The audience is furious … Bad for business.”
“Yes, telling your customers the truth is terrible for business,” Colbert deadpanned. “That’s why Arby’s quickly abandoned their old slogan: ‘We have the hog anus.’”
Jimmy Kimmel
“The J in Donald J Trump now stands for jail,” said Jimmy Kimmel with a smile. “It’s historic and it’s funny. It’s very, very funny. Of all the things he’s done, the one that bit Trump in the ass is a round of post-golf putter butter with the star of Sexbots: Programmed for Pleasure.”
Just a day earlier, Trump had praised the grand jury in an all-caps Truth Social post, saying the group were “NOT GOING TO VOTE AGAINST A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE”.
“And he was right. They voted for a preponderance of evidence against him,” said Kimmel. “That evidence being his payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, who he claims he doesn’t know, and his own lawyer saying Trump directed him to make that payment, and disguised that payment as a legal expense. That seems like a preponderance of evidence to me.
“Next week he’s going to have to write all this down on the wall of his cell with Cheeto dust,” Kimmel quipped.
“Best baseball opening day ever, I will say,” he added. “Lady Justice is getting loose in the bullpen right now. We’ll bring her in in the ninth to close it out with insurrection and treason.”
The Daily Show
Trump just got indicted and @JohnLeguizamo won the Daily Show guest host lottery pic.twitter.com/YXhjj2Bpv2
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 31, 2023
The live audience at Thursday’s taping of The Daily Show gave a standing ovation as guest host John Leguizamo revealed the news of Trump’s indictment. “That’s right, Lady Justice grabbed Trump by the pussy,” he said to cheers.
“And you know I take a firm stance against mass incarceration, OK? But for this, I’m willing to make an exception,” he added. “I just hope they take it easy on him and put him at least in a cell with his lawyer.
“But hey, let this be a lesson to you kids out there,” he continued. “If you commit fraud to cover up an affair with a porn star, the law will catch up to you – after, like, seven years and a full term as president.”
According to reports, Trump’s team will try to negotiate his surrender. “Either that, or they’ll leave a trail of Big Macs leading to the prison,” Leguizamo joked.
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, which taped before reports of the indictment were published, Seth Meyers mocked the far-right representative Lauren Boebert for an embarrassing appearance at a congressional hearing about criminal codes in Washington DC.
During the hearing, Boebert repeatedly badgered a witness for enacting a criminal code that the congresswoman had already overturned. “I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how dumb this is,” said Meyers. “She had to be corrected by the witness about a bill she voted on. There’s a good chance she doesn’t even know she’s in Washington DC right now. She probably needs one of those mall maps that tell you where you are, except for the entire country.”
The exchange “gets way dumber from there”, Meyers continued, because Boebert continued to press the witness on the criminal code she overturned, particularly on the downgrading of public urination, asking over and over about decriminalizing public urination in DC, which had not occurred.
“Are you not capable of doing a Google before appearing at committee hearings in Congress?” Meyers wondered. “Or does Boebert think doing a Google is also slang for public urination.”
Meyers offered an alternative theory: “I think Lauren Boebert’s staff hates her and gave her bad information as a prank.”
