Jimmy Kimmel
Late-night hosts enjoyed the testimony by Donald Trump’s three children at his civil fraud trial in New York, starting with sons Don Jr and Eric – or, as Jimmy Kimmel put it on Thursday evening, the “Stinklevoss twins”.
“I haven’t seen a more likable set of brothers on trial since the Menendez boys,” he joked.
Their father, the ex-president, was not in attendance on Wednesday at the New York courthouse. “Donald Trump not showing up to watch his kids testify in a fraud trial is the Trump family version of not showing up for their school play,” said Kimmel.
Don Jr “took a page from his dad’s book of gripes” with a courthouse steps press conference in which he cried persecution for simply using an accountant. Both Don Jr and Eric claimed that they didn’t know any of the financial specifics; at one point, Eric said: “I’m not a money guy, I’m a construction guy.”
“He’s a construction guy like the guy from the Village People is a construction guy,” Kimmel quipped. “He owns a yellow hat.”
“You may remember, the last time the Trump family got sued for a lot of money was for the grift known as Trump University,” Kimmel reminded. “But you know what they say: if at first you get sued and have to pay out $25m for victims of your fake college, try, try again.”
On that note, Donald Trump announced plans to start another university called “the Academy” that will use “the newest breakthroughs in computing” to create “a top-tier education for the people … no wokeness or jihadism allowed.”
“What if I want to minor in jihadism, is there any room for that?” Kimmel deadpanned. “You almost have to hand it to him, starting another fraudulent university in the middle of a fraud trial. It’s ballsy. Rarely do we get to see a pyramid scheme being built right in front of our eyes.”
Seth Meyers
Don Jr led the Trump family courthouse charge on Wednesday, and “at first, he seemed to be enjoying all the attention from the cameras while he sat at the defense table,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night.
“I should’ve worn makeup,” Trump joked before his testimony, a comment Meyers scorned. “Needing makeup is such a TV insider joke,” he said. “Like, most people don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Trump Jr denied having any involvement in the preparation of fraudulent financial statements, blaming the accountants even though he signed all of the statements. His argument was basically, as Meyers explained, that “he had nothing to do with the financial statements, except when he gave information to the accountants preparing those financial statements, but he didn’t think they would use that information in the statements they were preparing.”
“That’s like one of my writers, after a joke of theirs bombs in the monologue, telling me ‘I didn’t think you were going to use it!’” he added.
Given that he signed all of the statements, “you don’t get to claim you didn’t know what was in it and then just walk away scot-free,” said Meyers. “That doesn’t work for anyone else. That would be like John Hancock saying, ‘Independence from England?! I never agreed to that.’”
Stephen Colbert
By trial’s end, the New York courthouse will hear testimony from Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric Trump. “Or, as Trump calls them: the pretty one, the smart one, my favorite, Don Jr and Eric,” joked Stephen Colbert on the Late Show.
The host mocked Don Jr’s claim of ignorance: “Your honor, I know nothing about finance or numbers. I achieved my position in the organization because I can make a calculator spell ‘boobs’,” he said, imitating Trump’s eldest son.
The claim was especially confusing given that Trump Jr had previously signed a “cover your butt” letter certifying all the information given to the accountants was accurate.
“The letter says that you gave the accountants the accurate numbers to work with. It’s a cover their butts letter, Junior,” Colbert countered. “Your lily-white ass is still hanging in the wind clapping like a harp seal.”
And on Wednesday, Don Jr reportedly instructed the courtroom sketch artist to make him look “sexy” and quipped that “both sides” of his face are the good one. “It takes a lot of balls to hit on a sketch artist during your own trial,” Colbert laughed.
