Late-night hosts discuss the US government shutdown and Donald Trump’s threat to send the US military into major American cities.
Seth Meyers
On Wednesday’s Late Night, Seth Meyers examined the first government shutdown since 2018, which “will have repercussions for pretty much everyone” – one estimate puts the number of furloughed employees at 750,000, at the cost of $400m a day in lost compensation.
“A government shutdown is obviously not great,” he said, “which is why the president should get congressional leaders in a room together and hash out a deal. I mean, that’s obvious to everyone, including this guy back in 2011.” Meyers then played a clip of Trump blasting Barack Obama for overseeing a government shutdown, calling it a “tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States”.
The shutdown fight is, in part, over healthcare; Democrats want to renew subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, while Republicans are claiming that they want to give healthcare to undocumented immigrants, which fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked.
It will not, however, affect Trump’s supposed plan to send federal troops to US cities. In a speech on Tuesday, Trump called this effort the “war from within” and said: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
“When I hear a speech like this, two thoughts occur to me, and they’re hard to hold in my head at the same time,” said Meyers. “On the one hand, it’s a menacing authoritarian threat to use the military to suppress dissent and crack down on political opponents. It represents an existential threat to our freedoms and our constitutional order. And two, he sounds like 1m years old. He sounds like he accidentally chugged an entire bottle of Nyquil thinking it was Dayquil.”
In all seriousness, Meyers wondered, “why should any opposition party willingly fund a government that is pledging to use the military against them? If Trump wants to reach an agreement with Democrats, maybe he should stop threatening them.”
Jimmy Kimmel
The shutdown is happening “because we don’t have funding to pay the federal workers”, said Jimmy Kimmel during his weeklong stop in Brooklyn. “Trump really is running the country like it’s one of his businesses. He said he would!”
“Just to give you some perspective, the government being shut down is even worse than when it’s up and running,” he explained. “Republicans would like you to believe that it’s the Democrats that shut the government down, but the bill they wanted the Democrats to sign would knock out about 15 million Americans from health insurance. If this bill passes, your health insurance premiums could go up 75%. So there was no way the Democrats could vote for it.”
“It’s like going to dinner, and the waiter says you must order lasagna, the chef made it today, and a bunch of you are going to get food poisoning from it,” he added. “But if you don’t eat it, you’ve ruined the meal. That’s the Garfield version of what’s going on right now.”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert looked for upsides to the shutdown. “Maybe this is a good thing? The government hasn’t been working that great lately,” he said. “Who knows why? Maybe somebody got the government wet, you know? Let’s unplug it for a while and then plug it back in, see if it reboots.”
“If that doesn’t work, maybe toss it in a bag of rice, leave it there for a couple hours,” he continued. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll just throw it away and buy a new one with a better camera and a functioning president.”
The effects of the shutdown were already apparent – TSA air traffic controllers were already working without pay on Wednesday, as were food safety inspectors. “Oh, that’s just what you want: disgruntled people in charge of your food safety,” he quipped.
Trump’s military deployments to major cities will continue, however, as will his immigration crackdown and deportations. “Come on, why are we keeping only the unpopular parts of government?” Colbert asked. “You don’t see Disney launching a new Star Wars spinoff called Baby Jar Jar.”
The Daily Show
And on The Daily Show, guest host Ronny Chieng called the shutdown “a classic dispute between the parties: Democrats say that the government should help pay for healthcare, and Republicans say ‘that’s what GoFundMe is for!’”
“But because Republicans need Democratic votes to keep the government open, the two parties have to come together,” he continued. “So this moment calls for a serious and sober-minded leader, like President Trump, to work with the other side with dignity and mutual respect.”
So, naturally, Trump posted an AI-generated video depicting Jeffries, who is Black, wearing a sombrero and mustache, while Chuck Schumer said, in a fake voice, that Democrats had no voters left “because of our woke trans bullshit”.
“What the fuck did I just watch?” Chieng wondered. “Trump is making fun of a black man for being Mexican? It’s almost too confusing to be racist. It’s like putting a headdress on the Twin Towers. Like, I don’t even know what you’re trying to say? I don’t have the racist math skills to solve this equation.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but Donald Trump, can you be better at racism?” he joked.