Late-night hosts covered the second day of the government shutdown, claiming Trump and his loyalists are using it for nefarious reasons.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert said there was “no end in sight” to the shutdown and that “Uncle Sam is already selling feet pics” in desperation.
Trump has blamed Democrats, and he is “using it as a way to squash things he doesn’t like”, Colbert said, adding that “it’s not a shutdown, it’s a shut-pertunity”.
It’s the result of a disagreement over healthcare, with Democrats trying to push for benefits to be reinstated for many Americans under the Affordable Care Act.
Republicans “control all three branches of government, but somehow none of this is their fault” and Colbert said Trump was using it to “punish anyone who didn’t vote for him”.
Federal funds have been cut in states that voted for Kamala Harris, including in New York, with cuts to the city’s mass transit system. “You think you can scare New Yorkers?”
There have been no cuts to a state that backed Trump in 2024, leading Colbert to joke that the “Ronald Reagan oil field and memorial whorehouse” is safe.
The right have claimed, incorrectly, that the Democrats want to allow undocumented immigrants healthcare benefits, which has led Trump to share a number of AI-generated racist memes. “This is now our level of political discourse,” Colbert said, referring to it as “infantile bigotry”.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which is in Brooklyn for the week, the host also spoke about the shutdown and how the right are trying to force about 15 million people off their insurance.
Trump is trying to “do as much damage as he can” during the shutdown, and also the Magasphere is “very fired up” over the announcement of Bad Bunny as next year’s Super Bowl half-time performer.
Kimmel said that “one of Trump’s top hench-weasels”, Corey Lewandowski, has claimed they are planning to have Ice agents present.
“Ice heard there was a field where brown people get tackled and said: hey, that’s our job,” he joked.
The monologue also received a surprise guest in the shape of Jon Stewart, who was disguised as a GrubHub delivery driver.
He said he’s been forced to take on other jobs, as in the late-night world, “the job security’s not really there right now”.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers brought up the right’s hypocrisy over the shutdown, showing clips of Mike Johnson complaining that the shutdown will mean Fema [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] will lose funding, leaving many Americans vulnerable to catastrophic weather events.
Yet Trump has frequently spoken about his desire to dismantle Fema, calling it “frankly, not good”.
“Wait until Mike Johnson hears about this,” Meyers joked.
He claimed that Johnson is there to “launder Trump’s insanity” before saying “they want to have it both ways”.
This week also saw Trump post about Project 2025, the “massively toxic and unpopular rightwing wish-list” that he previously claimed to have nothing to do with. “Everyone knew that was bullshit at the time,” Meyers said.
