Seth Meyers
“There’s a lot you can say about the modern Republican party – it’s paranoid, authoritarian, obsessed with conspiracy theories and culture wars,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s Late Night. “But in addition to that, it’s also full of weird people constantly saying weird shit.”
Meyers pointed to the most recent example: Madison Cawthorn, the 26-year-old congressman from North Carolina, “who said something so bizarre the other day that even a Republican senator from his own state said Cawthorn clearly has been an embarrassment at times”.
In an interview with a podcast, Warrior Poet Society, posted online last week, Cawthorn, a controversialist and Trump supporter, talked about the “sexual perversion in Washington” and said his colleagues he had respected hosted orgies full of cocaine.
“Come on, man, you really expect us to believe that Congress could plan and execute an orgy?” Meyers mused. “At best I could see them announcing an exploratory committee that would begin to investigate the feasibility of an orgy at a later date.”
“I gotta say, if they were having orgies and doing cocaine, I would actually find that impressive,” he added. “I mean, they’re all 70 or 80 years old.”
Cawthorn “seems to be accusing his own GOP colleagues of being sex-crazed drug addicts”, Meyers explained, “which is why, understandably, those same colleagues are pissed at him now”. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, called Cawthorn in for a one-on-one meeting, after which he told reporters Cawthorn’s comments were “unacceptable”.
“This is truly an amazing turn in the evolution of the Republican party,” Meyers noted. “They whipped up their base into believing crazy shit. That base then elected a bunch of crazy people who believe that crazy shit, and now those crazy people are accusing their fellow Republicans of engaging in wild drug-fueled sex parties.”
Stephen Colbert
Five weeks into its “unlawful and brutal invasion of Ukraine”, Russian forces “still cannot overcome Ukraine’s fierce resistance”, said Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s Late Show. “Also, Russia’s basic incompetence. Their ground forces are, and I don’t want to get too technical here, a bucket of hot doo-doo.”
Russian troops, low on supplies, have even taken to camouflaging their tanks with swaths of carpeting. “Now, I’m no military expert, but I believe if you want to camouflage a tank, maybe disguise it as something that moves,” quipped.
Colbert also checked in on a noted Putin supporter: Donald Trump, who did an interview on Tuesday with the Just the News television show on the Real America’s Voice network. “The rightwing news outlets that our former president has been reduced to appearing on sound like they were named with magnetic poetry,” Colbert observed, mimicking a Trump staffer: “OK, sir, your next interview is going to be with Eagle Freedom Truth Gun Muscle Gazette. Quality people over there.”
During the “interview”, the former president called on Putin to release dirt on Hunter Biden, harkening back to the debunked conspiracy theory which led to his first impeachment as president in 2019. “Damn, he’s asking for Russian help through the TV again?” Colbert wondered. “Does this man have no shame? And I withdraw the question.
“As usual his timing is impeccable,” he added. “He reminded the world that Putin is his buddy at the exact moment that everyone realizes his buddy is actual Hitler. This is worse than last year, when Jell-O re-signed Bill Cosby to announce their new flavor, ‘Out on a Technicality Orange.’”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel started the night off with what remains the top story in Hollywood: the Oscars slap. “It is turning out to be this generation’s version of the moon landing,” he said. “Was it a crime? Was it staged? Was it the end of comedy? Was it cake? We don’t know.”
On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Oscars, announced an official inquiry into the incident. “You have to remember, it takes these people four hours to hand out eight awards,” said Kimmel, who hosted the ceremony in 2018. “So they’re in no rush. They do one thing a year, and that’s it.”
“Now the question is, what are they going to do? Are they going to suspend Will Smith’s membership? Maybe even take his Oscar away? I don’t think they should do either of those things,” Kimmel continued. “If the Academy wants to punish Will Smith, you know what they should do? They should make him host the red carpet interviews for E! next year.
“We’re all feeling the repercussions of this slap,” he added. “My jaw hurts just from telling so many jokes about it.”
