Samantha Bee
Samantha Bee tore into the trove of damning text messages handed over to the House January 6 committee by former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – more than 2,319 text messages with numerous Trump allies and GOP lawmakers.
“More than 2,000 text messages! This proves definitively that Mark Meadows is a gossipy little bitch,” the Full Frontal host said Thursday evening.
“Some of the most damning texts came on election day, like when Fox News host Sean Hannity promised Meadows he would push his listeners to get Trump elected,” she continued. When Meadows pressed Hannity to “stress every vote matters”, the host replied: “Yes sir. On it.”
“You know, it’s actually kind of nice to know that inside Sean Hannity’s soft, weak exterior rests an even softer, weaker man,” said Bee.
“In the days after the election, Mark Meadows’ phone kept blowing up in a group text that included villains such as Ivanka Trump, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner and Jason Miller,” she added. “In other words, they were basically only missing Jafar and Ursula the Sea Witch.”
Though messages show some Trump aides, including Kushner, sent evidence countering Trump’s baseless election fraud claims, the White House continued peddling the big lie. “Despite mounting worries, a total lack of fraud evidence and a warning about potential violence on January 6, Meadows and company went full speed ahead anyways,” Be explained.
“Of course, when it did turn violent, it wasn’t enough for true believers like Marjorie Taylor Greene,” who texted Meadows days later to suggest they stop Biden from taking office by having Trump declare “Marshall Law”. “And if you’re thinking, ‘that’s not how you spell martial law,’ you are very correct,” Bee said, adding “Marshall’s Law, as everyone knows, is that no one should pay retail prices for quality yoga pants.
“It’s also hard to paint the whole picture when we don’t have the whole picture,” she continued. “There are more than 1,000 texts Meadows refuses to turn over. Damn! Mark Meadows, you are messy. Delete my number!”
“If there’s one things these texts prove, it’s that it doesn’t matter to Republicans if they know for a fact that Joe Biden won the election,” she concluded. “What matters is these human bumper stickers are more than willing to use lies and a violent base to both take and keep power.”
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah dug into a bizarre court transcript from a New York civil suit against Donald Trump for inciting violence against protesters outside Trump Tower in 2015. “OK, first of all, it’s crazy that there are so many Trump scandals that he’s literally getting dragged into court for something we didn’t know was a thing,” Noah said.
“Nobody knew about this! I didn’t. Trump lawsuits are like Nicolas Cage movies – there’s a bunch where you’re like, ‘He lost a pig? When did that happen?’”
During the October 2021 deposition, Trump “came up with one of the most crazy defenses I’ve ever heard”, Noah said: that he was worried protesters would throw “dangerous fruit” at him.
Noah and Michael Kosta performed the transcript, because “no comedy writer is going to come up with something funnier than Trump’s deposition”, Noah said.
No comedy writer is going to come up with something funnier than Trump’s deposition on “dangerous fruit.” pic.twitter.com/fsLdopyuw4
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 29, 2022
Such verbatim lines include: “It’s worse than tomato, it’s other things also. But tomato, when they start doing that stuff, it’s very dangerous. There was an alert out that day” and “To stop somebody from throwing pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that, yeah … it’s dangerous stuff.”
“I will say this: he’s not wrong about being hit with a pineapple being dangerous – I mean, that’s got spikes built in,” Noah commented at the end. “You know what I think the worst fruit is to get with? A honeydew. Not because it’s hard but because you could get some of it in your mouth and that shit is disgusting.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers mocked the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who was caught lying about wanting Trump to resign after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Audio has revealed McCarthy told a House members only call in the immediate aftermath of the attack that he would urge Trump to resign.
Asked to comment on the evidence of his false denial this week, McCarthy flailed and said, nodding to his members: “Ask them, ask if I told any of them.”
“Your claim is that you weren’t lying when you denied that you said you had urged Trump to resign, because the reporter asked you if you had urged Trump to resign, which you claimed you didn’t,” Meyers explained. “And if we want to know if you told your members you would urge Trump to resign, we should ask your members if you told them you would urge him to resign, instead of just listening to the audio where you told them that you would urge Trump to resign.”
If that made no sense to you, that’s fine – it didn’t to Meyers either. “I feel like I just spent an hour trying to find an exit in a MC Escher painting.”
“Why would we ask your members if you said it?” Meyers wondered. “We have the audio of you telling your members that impeachment would pass and Trump should resign.”
