Late-night hosts talked misogyny, fear and racist remarks about Puerto Rico at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York on Sunday.
Stephen Colbert
Monday evening marked “one week from an election in which Americans will learn a lot about ourselves as a country”, said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. “We’ll be standing in a full-length mirror of democracy, butt-naked. And we’re gonna get an eyeful of just how far we’ve let ourselves go.”
As his “closing argument” of sorts, Donald Trump held a rally at New York’s historic Madison Square Garden on Sunday, which the Independent called “an orgy of fascism”. The New York Times called it “a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism”. And Fox News, naturally, said: “Trump, powerhouse guests rock packed MSG with historic rally.”
“Wow, how would they have covered Nuremberg?” Colbert wondered. “High-five enthusiasts thrilled by superstar Austrian painter’s tiny mustache?”
For the record, Colbert called the rally “a stomach-churning six hours of hatred, racism and threats of totalitarian revenge”, starting with the opening comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who “made a bunch of jokes that are so appallingly racist, none of the cable news channels would even run them”.
In one bit, Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating pile of garbage”
“Buddy, you don’t get to call something else a floating pile of garbage when you are standing on top of Penn Station. They clean off the pee with fresher pee,” Colbert joked.
In other election news, the Washington Post declined to endorse a candidate in the presidential election, citing a new policy in which the paper would no longer “tell people how to vote, a posture that would reflect the paper’s independent bona fides”.
“Counterpoint: you’re the opinion editor!” Colbert exclaimed. “Your whole job is to have an opinion about important stuff like this! That would be like a movie critic writing: ‘I give Megalopolis thumbs. To say how many, or which direction they’re pointing, would ruin my independent bona fides. Adam Driver gives a performance.’”
But what was “extra sinister” about the decision, he continued, was that the paper had an endorsement of Harris ready to go, but it was killed at the last second by the billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, prompting 200,000 customers to unsubscribe. “If this keeps up, it could destroy the Washington Post,” said Colbert. “Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I have no opinion.”
The Daily Show
On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart also unpacked Trump’s MSG rally, starting with Hinchcliffe’s offensive remarks about Puerto Rico. “Now obviously in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before election day and roasting a key voting demographic, probably not the best decision by the campaign politically,” said Stewart.
“But to be fair, the guy’s really just doing what he does. I mean, here he is at the Tom Brady roast a few months ago,” he added before a montage of Hinchcliffe telling shock-heavy jokes at the roast. “Yes, of course, terrible. Boo, yes,” Stewart added while laughing. “There’s something wrong with me,” he confessed. “I find that guy very funny. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you.”
On a more serious note, Stewart tore into one of Trump’s signature campaign promises: to conduct mass deportations of undocumented people through the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. “Who the fuck told Donald Trump about the Alien Enemies Act of 1798?” Stewart quipped. “Because I’m going to bet you something: he did not come to the meeting and go, ‘Hey, why don’t we use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act? Would that apply?’”
Stewart reminded viewers that such a move would have dire consequences for the US, could not be done humanely, and that the same rhetoric Trump uses to decry immigrants today was once used against Irish and Italian immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“Right now you think you’re safe, because the group Trump’s talking about, it’s not you,” he concluded. “As if … Donald Trump can tell the fucking difference or even cares that the day one implementation of the 1798 law, that was last used to intern Japanese and German citizens in world war two, will be a fine-toothed comb.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers mocked the many characters at Trump’s MSG rally, starting with “the most pathetic highlight of the evening”, Elon Musk. The Tesla founder wore a black Maga hat and called himself “dark gothic Maga”.
“Does he have to be so tragically lame?” Meyers taunted. “If I had as much money as this guy, I would be doing awesome shit like buying a sports team or a super yacht or a vintage Nintendo that I didn’t have to blow on all the time.”
Also at the rally was the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who “is just jealous of Kamala”, Meyers speculated, “because he’s whiter than a polar bear on a sailboat watching Frasier while eating a tub of mayo”.
And Meyers laughed at Trump’s unexpected efforts to distance himself from Hinchcliffe’s racist remarks on Puerto Rico. “You know how bad something has to be for the Trump campaign to distance themselves from it?” he mused. “Trump won’t even distance himself from Hannibal Lecter. He’s bragging about how similar he is to Scarface.
“I never thought I’d see the day when the Trump campaign is distancing themselves from something said at one of their own rallies,” he continued.
