Seth Meyers on Trump: ‘Sleepily rambling about bitter grievances to half-empty arenas’
Late-night hosts talked Kamala Harris’s closing argument speech, Donald Trump’s rambling interview with Joe Rogan and Elon Musk donating his sperm.
Seth Meyers
As the election nears its finish, Donald Trump should be making his case to voters. Instead, as Seth Meyers pointed out on Wednesday’s Late Night, he’s talking nonsense on podcasts.
“Even Joe Rogan, who gave Trump an opportunity to make his case, seemed skeptical,” said Meyers of the podcast host, who allowed Trump to continue to disavow the results of the 2020 election.
But even Rogan lost patience with Trump’s lack of evidence. “Are you going to present this, ever?” he eventually asked.
“I love how Rogan starts, ‘I’m not going to cut you off.’ And then 10 seconds in he’s like, ‘I’m going to have to cut this fucker off,’” Meyers laughed.
Related: Jimmy Kimmel: This election ‘is about sanity, security and democracy’
“‘Are you ever going to present this, ever?’ is a great question, especially when Trump lost roughly 60 court cases challenging the legitimacy of the election,” Meyers added. “No one who has evidence supporting their case chooses not to present it. There’s no legal strategy called rope-a-dope, where you lose the first 60 and then right when they relax, pow!”
But Meyer’s favorite part of the interview was when Trump told Rogan: “Well, what I’d rather do is – we’ll do it another time, and I would bring in papers that you would not believe. So many different papers.”
“Sixty cases and you never brought in the papers?!” Meyers mused.
Later in the monologue, Meyers tried to assuage viewer pessimism about the election: “I have no idea what’s going to happen next week,” he said. “The polls are a coin toss, but one thing I do know is this: Trump is not inevitable. Don’t let yourself feel that way.
“He fell ass-backwards into the presidency one time, despite losing the popular vote by 3 million, and he and his Maga minions have been routed in election after election since then,” he continued. “He’s not some unstoppable juggernaut. He’s sleepily rambling about bitter grievances to half-empty arenas while Kamala Harris gathers record crowds to outline her policy agenda.”
Meyers then played clips from Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden of speakers celebrating mass deportations of undocumented migrants and denigrations of Harris as “the devil”.
Trump hasn’t disavowed any of them, said Meyers, because “those weren’t jokes. They were beliefs, and Donald Trump has said not one word about them because that’s what he believes too, and it is deeply vile.”
Jimmy Kimmel
On election day, “You have to vote,” said Jimmy Kimmel. “If you can vote early, vote early. If you can’t vote early, vote on time. If you want to vote for Trump, vote late. Vote very late, so you’re voting on Thursday or maybe Friday.”
Kimmel cited a poll that only 30% of US voters think Trump will concede if he loses the election. “What would give them that idea? Of course Trump won’t concede if he loses this election,” said Kimmel. “He still hasn’t conceded the last election. And already he’s claiming Pennsylvania is cheating.”
Trump made the unfounded claim on Truth Social, calling on law enforcement to “act now”.
“This, of course, is false,” Kimmel reminded. “It’s another lie, and there are more to come over the next several days.”
Harris, meanwhile, made her closing argument in a speech that drew 20,000 more people than Trump did at the same spot on January 6. “And the craziest part is, when she was done speaking, they all went home,” said Kimmel.
Stephen Colbert
And on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert recapped Kamala Harris’s closing argument speech, which was “specifically designed to purple Trump’s nurple”.
Harris spoke at the same spot where Trump held his infamous January 6 rally, to a crowd of 75,000, compared with the 53,000 who attended Trump’s “Save America” rally.
Harris said Trump “has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That is who he is, but America, I am here tonight to say that is now who we are.
“That is right! We are uniters!” Colbert exclaimed. “We are the nation who brought together chicken and waffles, Mike and Ike, Baja and Blast – all of which come together to form one really terrible airport meal.”
In other news, Trump’s “private pet billionaire” Elon Musk is reportedly offering people his sperm, due to his concern over declining birth rates. “I cannot emphasize this enough: do not trick or treat at Elon’s house,” Colbert joked. “Elon, I’m not sure women would agree that the reason for declining birth rates is ‘there’s just not enough sperm out there!’”
Musk is allegedly so concerned about it that he’s offered his sperm to friends and acquaintances. “So, a warning to Elon’s friends and acquaintances: that’s not sourdough starter,” Colbert quipped.
