Late-night hosts discussed the return of Jimmy Kimmel’s show and Donald Trump’s continued attempts to crack down on free speech.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert started with some good news, announcing Kimmel’s suspension has officially ended. “Our long, national, late-nightmare is over,” he said.
Colbert called it “wonderful” to hear his ABC rival would return after he was briefly punished by Disney for mischaracterised comments about the right trying to score political points over the death of Charlie Kirk.
The decision came after a huge spike in people searching how to cancel Disney+ and Hulu. Colbert said a similar spike was seen in people searching “how to entertain feral child without Bluey”.
He said the decision to reinstate was “because you, the American people were upset” and also “not just people, also Ted Cruz”, as the Republican also expressed his concern over the censorship. “I am shocked that I agree with Ted Cruz on something,” he said.
However, many people also misdirected their complaints to the ABC in Australia. “They never canceled their popular late-night host, horrifying giant spider,” he said.
Colbert said there is still a “whole lot of ways that Trump is doing bad stuff”, such as asking his attorney general, Pam Bondi, on social media to punish his enemies whether there’s evidence of a crime or not. “That post was definitely meant to be a text,” he said.
Meanwhile, his “border czar”, Tom Homan, has been accused of accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents. The White House has denied this.
The past week also saw the administration announce “another dictator move” adding a $100,000 fee to H-1B visas, up from the standard $1,500. It will cost an estimated $14bn for US companies, such as Amazon, Google and Apple.
Colbert joked that it would mean Apple will be “replacing the Genius Bar with the Moron Shelf”.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers also spoke about Trump wanting to “prosecute his political opponents” but finding himself initially restricted, so “loyalists started drawing up detailed plans” for getting around the rules.
He has since been obsessed with punishing critics and exacting revenge despite inflation worrying the US public more.
The officials who introduced impediments and “wouldn’t go along” with his plans were excised with Trump “firing people who refuse to go along with his plan of retribution”.
Meyers spoke about former Trump attorney Erik Siebert claiming he was unable to find anything in his investigation of Trump target Letitia James, New York’s attorney general. He quit, with Trump claiming he was fired because of too much support from Democrats.
Meanwhile, Meyers joked that Democrats are begging Trump to compromise with them. He joked that they are “basically high school nerds” who are having to “pre-shove themselves into lockers”.
He said no matter what your belief system is, “the president publicly naming a lot of people he wants to put in jail is a bad thing”.
Trump’s attacks on late-night hosts and freedom of speech on TV continue with threats thrown at them all beyond Kimmel. “The point is we make jokes about politicians, people in the news including Joe Biden,” he said. “It was just harder with Joe Biden because he didn’t say much. You, on the other hand, talk all the time.”
Meyers joked that he “talked more than all the other presidents combined”.
He also spoke about backlash from Cruz and other conservatives to the Kimmel suspension, saying: “It is possible to stand up to this kind of bullying and censorship.”
