{"id":96826,"date":"2025-10-23T16:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T16:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/96826\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T16:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T16:35:07","slug":"seth-meyers-on-trumps-white-house-demolition-this-is-insane-late-night-tv-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/96826\/","title":{"rendered":"Seth Meyers on Trump\u2019s White House demolition: \u2018This is insane\u2019 | Late-night TV roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late-night hosts dissected Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s kingly behavior, from the destruction of the White House\u2019s East Wing<\/a> to his demand for payment<\/a> from the justice department.<\/p>\n

Seth Meyers<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have warned for years that Donald Trump is destroying American institutions,\u201d said Seth Meyers<\/a> on Wednesday evening, \u201cbut of course when we said \u2018destroying\u2019, we meant metaphorically speaking. We didn\u2019t mean that he was literally destroying buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I guess Trump heard that and thought, \u2018On it.\u2019 Because now he\u2019s literally destroying the East Wing of the White House,\u201d the Late Night host continued. The previously unannounced construction comes just days after record-breaking No Kings protests against Trump\u2019s behavior as president, and as fellow Republicans continue to claim that he does not act like an authoritarian leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys, they\u2019re right. Trump is not a king!\u201d Meyers joked. \u201cA king is someone who presumes the power to do whatever they want without consulting someone else. Someone who treats public property and public resources of the state as their own. Someone who surrounds themselves with lavish appointments and gilded furnishings and the trappings of wealth and power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such as, say, a $250m, 90,000 sq ft gilded ballroom, as Trump has unilaterally proposed for the White House. \u201cThis is insane,\u201d said Meyers over a photo of the demolished East Wing. \u201cThis looks like a scene from an apocalyptic disaster movie. This is the first thing aliens do in movies to announce they\u2019re evil. They blow up the White House. Trump is just cutting out the middleman of invading aliens.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one was consulted about this,\u201d he added. \u201cNo one approved of this. Congress certainly didn\u2019t get a say. The White House isn\u2019t Trump\u2019s \u2013 it\u2019s supposed to be ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between this and his demand that the justice department pay him as punishment for investigations against him, Trump \u201cis responding to the massive and historic No Kings protests with two cartoonishly straightforward examples of kingly behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the ongoing lowering of our national limbo bar, I gotta say: Donald Trump has proven himself to surprisingly limber for a man with those cankles,\u201d said Stephen Colbert<\/a> on the Late Show. \u201cBecause in just the last 24 hours alone, he\u2019s achieved two new lows.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, the White House demolition. And second, a demand of $230m from the justice department as compensation for cases against him stemming from his first term as president. And technically, as president again, he could now order the government to pay him. \u201cWell, that doesn\u2019t seem right,\u201d said Colbert. \u201cI mean, if you\u2019re going to do that, why stop at $230m? Why don\u2019t you just let him go to Fort Knox, lose the pants and go Scrooge McDuck into a pile of gold?<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, if you\u2019re saying \u2018a judge would never allow that\u2019 \u2013 oh you sweet, stupid child,\u201d he added. \u201cThis don\u2019t go before no judge.\u201d They\u2019re administrative claims that would be settled by senior officials in the Department of Justice \u2026 who are all appointed by Trump, some of whom once served on his personal legal team. \u201cHis own lawyers decide whether he wins,\u201d Colbert reiterated. \u201cIt\u2019s like that classic drama Twelve Angry Men Who Were All at My Bachelor Party.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so crazy, even Trump is aware of how insane the situation is,\u201d he continued, pointing to comments Trump made just last week, where he acknowledges \u201cit sorta looks bad, I\u2019m suing myself\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it looks bad. You sue you, and you get to decide which one of yous wins \u2026 I\u2019m guessing you do,\u201d said Colbert. \u201cIt\u2019s an endless loop of corruption, like M\u00f6bius grift. I think they call it the circle of jerk.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Show<\/p>\n

And on The Daily Show, Michael Kosta also looked into Trump\u2019s $230m demand from his own government. \u201cI know it\u2019s not exactly what Black people wanted, but the American government is finally paying reparations,\u201d Kosta joked. \u201cWell, it is to an old white millionaire president, but that\u2019s why you need to be more specific when you\u2019re manifesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kosta pointed out that the people in charge of approving the payment, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, used to work for Trump\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry, I\u2019m sure Todd Blanche will take his time and very carefully consider \u2026 what color pen he will use to sign the check over to his president boss,\u201d Kosta said. \u201cLet me spell this out for you: Trump\u2019s own former lawyers are the ones who get to decide if Trump gets this payout from the government that Trump is in charge of.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you can\u2019t believe how good Trump\u2019s luck is, he also can\u2019t seem to believe it,\u201d he added before a clip of Trump in the Oval Office calling the situation \u201cawfully strange\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like even Trump is suspicious about how easy this is,\u201d Kosta concluded. \u201cThis must be how those thieves at the Louvre felt \u2013 \u2018So, all I need is a ladder? I thought this would be way more complicated. I\u2019ll steal these invaluable jewels, I guess.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-night hosts dissected Donald Trump\u2019s kingly behavior, from the destruction of the White House\u2019s East Wing to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-96826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}