Late-night hosts recap the first vice-presidential debate and Donald Trump tossing boxes of chicken tenders at an SEC college football game.
Jimmy Kimmel
Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate in New York was between “two men who couldn’t be much more different”, said Jimmy Kimmel. “One of them called Donald Trump a reprehensible idiot who shouldn’t be president, the other is Tim Walz.”
Both Walz and JD Vance “stuck to the issues, they showed each other a lot of respect”, Kimmel continued. “It was, uh, very boring.
“I’ll be honest, I like these better with Trump, I really do,” he said.
Watching a vice-presidential debate is “like taking your kids apple picking”, he noted. “About halfway through you’re like, ‘OK, this sounded like it was going to be fun, but what’s the point?’
“It was weird to see Tim Walz being so serious,” he said. “I kept waiting for him to reach down behind his podium and come up with a corndog and a baby pig.”
Vance, meanwhile, elicited some faux-sympathy from Kimmel. “You kind of feel sympathy for JD Vance, having to defend Donald Trump, who he himself openly denounced. It’s kind of like being Diddy’s defense attorney.”
Still, “both candidates were pretty darn polite to each other”, said Kimmel before a montage of the two candidates declaring they “agree” with one another.
“Trump is not going to like that at all,” said Kimmel. “You’re in trouble, JD.”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert branded the debate “Hillbilly Elegy v Minnesota nice.”
Vance looked like “a business lemur on beta blockers”, while Walz “looked like the old likable coach, but appeared to be way over-caffeinated”, he said. “I think the governor done overdid doin’ the Dew.”
During the debate, Vance tried to claim that the Trump administration was one of the most peaceful times in America. “A peaceful time! Free of any major conflict, as we all remember from the January 6 puppy pile,” Colbert deadpanned.
Vance also “tried to pretend that January 6 was no biggie”.
Said the Ohio senator: “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over on January the 20, as we have done for 250 years in this country.”
“Yeah, after his coup failed!” Colbert interjected. “That’s like a toddler saying, ‘I went to bed peacefully at 8pm, and I think that it’s time we stop focusing on the 45 minutes I spent screaming and biting the babysitter because I wanted more bubbles.’”
Vance also tried to spin the “real family separation policy” and “Kamala Harris’s wide open southern border”.
“Nice try,” said Colbert, imitating the logic: “The real cheating on his wife with a porn star is Kamala Harris’s immigration policy. Tragically, her southern border is the one with the mushroom penis.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers noted that the vice-presidential debate did not feature a live audience, “which, because of his rallies, gives Vance home court advantage”.
Trump attended the University of Georgia v the University of Alabama college football game over the weekend. Appealing to students, he tossed boxes of chicken tenders into the crowd while they chanted “USA!” – “which is the easiest way to describe this country to someone who’s never been here”, Meyers laughed.
Trump sat in a box with the golfer John Daly and the musician Kid Rock. “Apparently, you get to see a game with the president if you collect 1bn Marlboro miles,” Meyers joked.
The group reportedly had Domino’s pizza and McDonalds delivered for the game. “Thank God nobody lit a match,” Meyers quipped. “I feel bad for the cleaning crew the next morning. Remember in middle school when it was your turn to rinse out the terrarium and you got hit with that turtle funk? Imagine that times John Daly and Kid Rock.”
