Late-night hosts tore into Donald Trump for his use of an ableist slur and unconvincing attempts to assuage concerns about his cognitive abilities.
Jon Stewart
As the Thanksgiving spirit gave way to the work week, Jon Stewart tore into the president for using an ableist slur to describe the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz. In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump called Walz, who ran against him last year as Kamala Harris’s running mate, “seriously retarded”.
“On Thanksgiving?! Are you confusing that with Festivus?” the Daily Show host exclaimed on Monday evening.
Days later, asked by reporters if he regretted his remarks, Trump doubled down, saying that there was “something seriously wrong” with the Democratic governor.
“Something wrong with him? With him?” Stewart fumed. “You were sitting with your family at Thanksgiving, belly full of turkey and pie, surrounded by the love of your extended crime family, but your initial instinct was to Truth a slur at Tim Walz? And there’s something wrong with him?
“The press corps had to spend the whole holiday weekend down at Mar-a-Lago, listening to this brain ooze, and then, they couldn’t even go back home by themselves,” he added. “They had to fly back with this nut and ask him if he wants to clarify any of the nonsense.”
In fact, Trump attempted to assuage recurring concerns about his health and cognitive abilities, including a recently revealed MRI scan in October, by claiming that he had “no idea” what part of the body was even scanned.
“It was just an MRI,” he said. “What part of the body? It wasn’t the brain because I took a cognitive test, and I aced it.”
“That’s not physically possible,” Stewart responded. “To have no idea, it’s not possible. What would you say to the doctor? ‘No no no, don’t tell me. I want to find out at my MRI reveal party.’
“For God’s sakes, man, were you not curious at all?” he continued. “When they laid you down in a tube for a half an hour to 45 minutes, you didn’t want to know what they might be doing? Or did you just think to yourself, ‘What a loud tanning bed’?”
Stewart also mocked Trump’s claim that he got a “perfect score” on his MRI.
“That’s how they score the MRIs,” Stewart joked. “You either get a big stamp, ‘Perfect,’ or you get in red ink, ‘See me.’”
Stephen Colbert
“Maga folks are starting to notice that Trump treats them like meat animals,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday’s Late Show, citing a Daily Beast interview with former supporters angry with the president for building a gilded ballroom instead of tackling affordability. “I’ll have you know that the entire purpose of that ballroom is to serve the poor — and they will be delicious,” Colbert quipped.
In other news, “Trump celebrated Thanksgiving in his traditional way – with racism,” Colbert quipped, referring to Trump’s anti-immigrant rant on Truth Social from the weekend. “Somewhere in all of that nonsense”, he attacked Minnesota’s immigration policies and used an ableist slur to describe Walz.
Walz responded: “Release the MRI results.” Trump then said he would release the results, though he didn’t know what part of the body was scanned.
“Uh, here’s a theory: maybe the part that’s broken is the part that’s supposed to know,” Colbert noted.
“As per usual, after the president said something, the White House scrambled to justify it,” he continued. And on Monday afternoon, Trump’s staff posted a letter from Trump’s doctor claiming that the MRI was given “because men in his age group benefit from a thorough evaluation of cardiovascular and abdominal health”.
“OK, fair enough,” said Colbert. “Men in his age group also benefit from retiring, so … can we write that prescription next?”
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel also blasted Trump for using an ableist slur. “See, he can be presidential when he wants to be!” he joked. “I wonder why he didn’t get that Nobel peace prize. It makes no sense.”
As for Trump’s follow-up on Air Force One – emphasizing of Walz that “I think there’s something wrong with him” – Kimmel was blunt: “another bold statement from the president of the eighth grade”.
Trump also continued to claim that his approval ratings had never been higher, “which means it’s not just books he can’t read”, said Kimmel. With a negative rating of 60%, “there are gas station bathrooms on Yelp with higher approval ratings than Donald Trump right now.”
Kimmel then touched on Trump’s promise to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
“Now some have pointed out the unbelievable hypocrisy of Trump, blowing up boats and killing random Venezuelans because he believes there are low-level drug runners in the boats, while simultaneously pardoning a man who sent a million pounds of cocaine to this country,” said Kimmel. “But those people are just haters and losers, you know? Lighten up!
“When he was running for president, Trump made it very clear: his top priorities were a) pardoning drug kingpins and b) building a place to ballroom dance,” he added. “Promises made, promises kept.”