Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah recapped the final public hearing by the House January 6 select committee until September, which “didn’t just expose the president for throwing a Trump tantrum”, he explained on Monday’s Daily Show. “They also took a moment to reveal that a lot of the bravado that we’ve seen from far-right Republican lawmakers wasn’t exactly how they felt while the ‘patriots’ were ransacking the Capitol.”
You think Josh Hawley running away from rioters like a little b*tch is funny? pic.twitter.com/OYXthSxRni
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 26, 2022
In particular, the January 6 committee dragged the far-right Missouri senator Josh Hawley, who raised his fist in solidarity with the mob upon entering the Capitol and was later caught on tape running away from the attack. “I’m sorry, but the January 6 committee should be ashamed of itself,” Noah joked. “They had no reason to show this. They just wanted to embarrass a senator of the United States. Why? Just because he ran away like a little bitch?
“Yeah he raised his fist and egged the crowd on, but is that a reason to show him pissing his pants on national television?” Noah continued to mock. “Is it a crime to be crying and running away from the mob that you riled up? Oh, he’s such a bitch-ass. Let me tell you something! That bitch-ass thought the mob was going to kill him. Is that funny to you? This grown man running on his little gazelle legs?
“So sadly, that’s it for season one of the January 6 hearings,” he concluded. “But good news: it’s already renewed for season two, which drops in September. And like any good series, they’re leaving us with some major cliffhangers: will they find the Secret Service’s deleted text messages? Will Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger finally realize that the love they’ve been looking for has been right in front of them this whole time? Will we find out that Steve Bannon is the source of monkeypox? Either way, we’ll be waiting with bated breath.”
Stephen Colbert
On Late Night, Stephen Colbert celebrated the conviction of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress on Friday. Bannon, who had urged followers before his trial to “pray” for his enemies, put up no defense and was found guilty of all charges.
“Evidently, Bannon was hoping to win in the court of public opinion,” Colbert explained. “Unfortunately, his trial was held in the court of court.”
Bannon faces up to two years in federal prison, and was convicted after only three hours of deliberation, including a lunch break. “It took them less time to convict him than it did to agree on calamari for the table,” Colbert laughed. “Reminds me of the classic film 12 Hangry Men.”
In other bad news for Trump, a New York Times poll found that nearly half of Republican voters are seeking someone different for president in 2024 and a significant number vowed to abandon him if he wins the nomination. “So that means the hearings are working,” Colbert noted. “The former president has been betrayed by his closest friend: TV.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers mocked Trump for trying to claim, in a speech over the weekend, that he’s the most persecuted person in American history. According to Trump, a “friend” suggested the idea to him, and he “thought about it” and agreed. “I like the idea that this never occurred to Trump until a ‘friend’ suggested it,” Meyers said. “Is this where he gets all his ideas?
“I also love the idea that Trump sat back and thought about it, after he finished conjugating ‘persecuted’,” he added. “He just sat back and he thought about it and he came to the conclusion that yes his friend was right.
“I’m sure he was just sitting in his study with a pipe and smoking jacket, surrounded by walls of books, comparing himself to other historical examples – ‘famous persecuted Americans, let’s see … there’s me, there’s Rosa Parks, there’s Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter. I guess out of those three, it’s gotta be me.’
“Personally, I think that maybe Trump is just especially wounded after the January 6 committee aired those embarrassing outtakes last night from his speech the day after the attempted coup, in addition to showing us what Trump was unwilling to say,” Meyers continued. “For instance, he didn’t want to say that the election was over or that the rioters should face justice. They also showed us that maybe Trump’s not, like, the best reader.”
In a clip from rehearsals for his speech post-January 6, Trump struggled to read a teleprompter and stumbled repeatedly over the word “yesterday”.
“Maybe ‘yesterday’ is difficult for him because he doesn’t understand the concept,” Meyers mused. “He literally has no memory of anything that happened more than five minutes ago. He’s like a caveman who’s not sure if the sun will come back out after it goes down at night. That’s why he looks straight at it, you know. To make sure it’s still there.”
