Late-night hosts recapped another day of chaos, as Donald Trump institutes a surprise 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs after global markets plummet.
Jimmy Kimmel
“This is day 79 of Trump-o-mania,” said Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday. “It’s been fun, watching this lunatic gamble our life’s savings this week. It’s like handing a social security check to your dog and sending it to Caesar’s Palace. ‘If the dealer has 16, stay, OK?’”
Wednesday marked “another rollercoaster of a day”, as Trump “hit the snooze button on all those big, beautiful tariffs he levied”. In the early afternoon local time, Trump announced a surprise 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs plan, “which puts us right around the Fourth of July to blow things up again”, said Kimmel.
“The world of finance was relieved, to say the least,” he noted, as the markets shot up after Trump’s announcement. “Think about that: the best thing Trump has done for America was undo the incredibly dumb thing he did,” Kimmel quipped. “Imagine if he quit? He could usher in a whole new era of prosperity.”
In the meantime, “our job, I guess, is to sit back and watch him take credit for solving the financial crisis he created”.
“He stopped the tariffs without a single deal with a single country in place. So much for that spine of steel,” Kimmel continued, referring to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s characterization of the president. “Turns out the spine of steel was no match for the brain of mashed potatoes.”
Still, “it has been funny watching them try to spin this”, Kimmel said, pointing to comments from Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who said: “It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment.”
“He stayed the course – it was a golf course, but he stayed it,” Kimmel laughed. “He did not stay the course! He drove the economy into a sand trap and took a mulligan, that’s what he did.”
Seth Meyers
“After the big White House announcement and days of market turmoil and global uncertainty and cabinet officials defending him on TV, Trump is backing down,” Seth Meyers said on Late Night. “None of this makes any sense, especially because just yesterday, Trump’s White House said he was definitely not considering a pause.”
Meyers quoted Leavitt, who said a pause was “not his mindset”.
“Trump doesn’t have a mindset,” Meyers retorted. “He reacts to news the way a Roomba reacts to walls. The pause is happening because Trump unleashed chaos on the economy for no reason. Even his own supporters on Wall Street have been flipping out, and it’s worth remembering they were ecstatic when he won in November.”
“But even when they were jubilant, the one hesitation Wall Street had was Trump’s tariffs. They just got over it by convincing themselves he would do it in a very measured, thoughtful manner,” said Meyers before several clips of financiers, such as the JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, expressing hope that Trump would be reasonable with tariffs. “Why do you guys convince yourself after everything we’ve been through that Trump would do this in a way that makes sense!
“Trump’s supporters on Wall Street and the Republican party freaked out, which is why he caved and paused the tariffs,” he surmised. “He thought telling everyone to chill out would work, but it did not.” On Truth Social, Trump wrote: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
“Nobody knows more about cool than a 78-year-old golfer with words on his hat,” Meyers laughed. “All of this chaos is happening for no reason, and in the process it’s hurting real people.”
Stephen Colbert
And on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert observed “another day of historic market losses thanks to Trump’s random-ass tariffs”, followed by a surge in the Dow after Trump announced his pause.
The “mad emperor of global trade decreed” a 90-day pause to the tariffs, under the guise of “negotiations” with other countries. “Thank goodness that 1.18pm today, Donald Trump made a decision that at the last minute saved our nation from a previous decision by Donald Trump,” Colbert quipped.
“Look, I have no idea what Trump is doing with these tariffs – something apparently I have in common with Donald Trump,” he added. “But the point is: economic nuclear winter is on pause for 90 days.
“Apparently, this is a negotiation and his policies have changed – a slight adjustment from this weekend, when they said, ‘this is not a negotiation’ and ‘my policies will never change’,” Colbert said, quoting the president. “His policies will never change, especially his policy that his policies always change. That one? Solid as a rock – for now.”
Colbert also mocked Trump’s social media plea to “BE COOL!” as “not that reassuring, actually. That’s what frat guys say to each other when the pledge stops making noise.”
