Late-night hosts reacted to market panic over Donald Trump’s tariffs and the new Maga party line that money actually isn’t important, anyway.
Jon Stewart
“Our economy is in the midst of a beautiful metamorphosis, turning from a simple caterpillar into … a dead caterpillar,” said Jon Stewart from his usual Monday night perch at The Daily Show.
In the days since Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on nearly every country, the stock market saw its worst downturn since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. “This turmoil could have lasting effects on the global economy, on everyday Americans, and most worryingly, the stock portfolios of members of Congress,” said Stewart. “Mr President, now is the time to soothe a worried nation!”
Stewart pointed to Trump’s attempt, a Truth Social post that read: “Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid. Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!).”
“‘Panican?’ The genius who gave us classics like ‘Sleepy Joe’ and ‘Crooked Hillary’ just shit out: ‘You’re a Panican?’” Stewart laughed. “How about Hystericrats? Repussicans? How about Cryin-tologists? Did the overseas factory you had been sourcing your nicknames from get shut down during the tariff war?”
But Trump doubled down on his tariff defense with another post: “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!”
“What are you doing?!” Stewart exclaimed. “Your economic policy has the same tagline as season three of Squid Game?”
In all seriousness, “it didn’t have to happen like this,” Stewart explained. “Trump had so many options to shape the world economy into the one he thought was fairer. He could’ve proposed some incentives to bring back manufacturing. He could’ve gone sector to sector, nation to nation, and negotiated better trade reciprocal agreements.
“To be fair to the Trump administration, they did give it almost two months and no effort before they asked ChatGPT what it thought they should do,” he added. “But for those of us who have been tricked into believing that an economic crisis is a crisis, Trump’s people have an answer.”
That would be the new Republican line that actually, money doesn’t matter. As the Fox News host and Trump booster Jeanine Pirro put it: “I don’t really care about my 401(k).”
“When did the right become so chill?” Stewart wondered. “Aren’t you the ‘Bud Light is turning my kids trans’ folks? But economic meltdown and you’re getting all philosophical?
“We continue to blame everybody else in the world that we designed and policed after world war two,” he concluded. “We’re the richest country in the world – ever! We’re not the world’s victims. If we have inequalities in this country, that’s on us. It’s not a supply problem. It’s not unfair trade, for the most part. It’s an investment and distribution problem. It’s our fucking fault. And it’s not saying we can’t make adjustments and renegotiate things, but it didn’t have to be this reckless. You killed the hostage and then went, ‘So, ransom?’”
Stephen Colbert
“I want to welcome you all to Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age’,” said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. “And turns out by golden he meant golden shower, because it really feels like he’s peeing on our leg and telling us it’s liberated.
“It’s a bit of a lonely time for those Americans who saw all this malicious incompetent corrupt chaos coming and voted ‘not that again, please’,” he continued. “It turns out, in Trump’s economy, the only safe job is Guy Who Takes Photos of Panicked Stockbrokers.”
The host lamented the worst week for the stock market since March 2020. “Now there is one silver lining: this time, since there’s no pandemic, we can safely scream straight into each other’s faces,” he joked.
He also mocked Wall Street financiers and Trump backers who were reportedly surprised by the president’s tariffs. “A surprise? He’s only been talking about tariffs since the 1980s!” Colbert exclaimed. “In the campaign, he said tariff was the most beautiful word in the English language. This is like electing Snoop Dogg and saying ‘I didn’t know he was going to smoke weed every day.’”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers recapped a weekend of “Hands Off” anti-Trump protests in 1,200 locations across all 50 states. “I wonder what it was they were protesting?” he joked. “Could it be an unelected billionaire hacking away at cherished programs like social security? Or a quack health secretary firing scientists and disease experts during a measles outbreak? Or masked agents snatching people off the streets, or an administration that’s sending innocent Venezuelans to foreign gulags without any accusation of a crime or due process?”
He continued: “Or Ice arresting a mother and three children, including a third-grader, and sending them to a detention facility in Texas? Or a lunatic president singlehandedly lighting the world economy on fire because he doesn’t understand the concept of a trade imbalance and hosts a press conference with a giant chart of nonsensical numbers that no one can understand or read because the font is too small, and it almost blows away with the wind? And when people freak out and start dumping stock, he tries to tell everyone to hang tough, but accidentally posts the words ‘HANK TOUGH’.”
Hank Tough, he added, “sounds like Donald Trump’s porn star alter ego”.
Meyers also mocked Maga acolytes like Jeanine Pirro who tried to put a positive on the crisis by saying they don’t care about money or 401(k) pensions.
“People who spent four years screaming about the price of eggs are suddenly turning into Buddhist monks,” Meyers laughed.
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel recapped “another terrifying day on Wall Street” that has former Trump supporters questioning the president. “His once loyal gaggle of gazillionaires is turning on him, because they’re losing so much money.”
Kimmel also mocked Trump’s new “Panican” nickname for “a new party of Weak and Stupid People”.
“I may not be an expert when it comes to the economy, but I am an expert when it comes to nicknames, and ‘Panican’ is not going to catch on,” Kimmel quipped.
Kimmel was not reassured by Trump’s orders that people stay the course of the tariffs. “The guy who went bankrupt six times is going to steer us through this disaster he created for no reason at all.”
That disaster has already wiped $11tn in market value. “Gone! Just into thin air,” Kimmel said. “But at least we won’t have tampons in the boys’ bathrooms!”
