{"id":779578,"date":"2026-09-23T03:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T03:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779578\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T03:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T03:48:09","slug":"jon-stewart-on-trumps-white-house-media-ban-authoritarian-crackdown-late-night-tv-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779578\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Stewart on Trump\u2019s White House media ban: \u2018authoritarian crackdown\u2019 | Late-night TV roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s dramatic White House media ban<\/a> and casual disregard of the first amendment.<\/p>\n

Jon Stewart<\/p>\n

\u201cAs many of you have heard, if you\u2019ve been following the news, the hottest spot in DC has just changed their door policy,\u201d said Jon Stewart<\/a> on Monday\u2019s Daily Show, referring to the president\u2019s White House media ban<\/a>. Over the weekend, journalists from CNN, MS Now<\/a> and Politico were barred<\/a> from White House grounds in an extraordinary escalation of Trump\u2019s battle against news outlets, which the president attributed to the fact that it\u2019s \u201csick\u201d to have \u201ca country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you tried presidenting better?\u201d Stewart advised. \u201cYou could. But no. You could ban the press or you could be a better fucking president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, give the press something to work with! \u2018Oh, here\u2019s a positive story: I never thought my car could take $140 worth of gas in such a small tank. I had no idea!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd not for nothing,\u201d he continued, \u201chave we ever had a president, just flat-out in the Oval Office, come out against the constitution? \u2018What kind of a sick country doesn\u2019t allow unlimited, warrantless search and seizure? I mean, that\u2019s not the North Korea I grew up in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to clarify the specifics of the ban, Trump referred to the decision as \u201cthe ban on the free press\u201d, which Stewart decried as an \u201can authoritarian crackdown\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gives no fucks,\u201d he added. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t even respect us enough to pretend he\u2019s bound by our constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seth Meyers<\/p>\n

On Late Night, Seth Meyers<\/a> returned from an extended summer holiday refreshed and revitalized, soon to be ruined by a fresh supercut of every bad summer headline. Among the troubling developments: diesel prices<\/a> at an all-time high, oil executives declaring<\/a> \u201cthe great fuel crisis is here\u201d, Iran strikes that damaged<\/a> US base structures, and a trade war with Canada<\/a> leading to a possible price hike on toilet paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes!\u201d Meyers jokingly cheered at the montage\u2019s end. \u201cNow, you might be surprised that I\u2019m psyched, despite what I just showed you. But I am psyched because I recently bought a case of this,\u201d he said, whipping out a roll of toilet paper. \u201cThat\u2019s pure Canadian two-ply, white as snow in Alberta. You know the street value of this shit? I can sell these for 30 bucks a pop.\u201d<\/p>\n

But later in the monologue, Meyers got briefly serious: \u201cThis is how bad things are. Gas is too expensive<\/a> to drive to the grocery store, and even if you do, you can\u2019t eat anything because the food costs too much<\/a>, it might make you sick<\/a>, and if it does make you sick, the soap you use to clean your hands has just been recalled<\/a>, while the toilet paper you need will be too expensive because of a trade war with Canada no one asked for.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not all bad, because you guys, we\u2019re getting a fucking arch!\u201d Trump\u2019s proposed \u201ctriumphal\u201d military arch<\/a> will, according to the president, come equipped<\/a> with drones and snipers \u2013 \u201cyou know, like all good-guy arches\u201d, Meyers deadpanned. \u201cWhat else is it going to have? Lasers, missiles and an eye of Sauron?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Kimmel<\/p>\n

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> also reacted to Trump\u2019s media ban. \u201cAs his popularity continues to plummet<\/a>, Trump\u2019s fingers go deeper and deeper into his ears,\u201d he said. \u201cBad news is fake news to Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knows [this] is an attack on freedom of the press, but Trump sees it differently\u201d, he continued. The president said<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s a very simple ban. I don\u2019t want them in my office. I don\u2019t want them here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel translated: \u201cThey hurt his feelings, and so they\u2019re not welcome in his house any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The host then played a clip of Trump justifying the ban at his Oval Office desk, claiming: \u201cThere\u2019s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that\u2019s fine. But I don\u2019t have to let \u2018em into my \u2013 into the people\u2019s \u2013 house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe almost slipped and told the truth there,\u201d Kimmel laughed. \u201cIt\u2019s the people\u2019s house that he knocked down<\/a> without consulting any of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he\u2019s doing is positively un-American,\u201d Kimmel continued, noting that on Monday, the five major news networks \u2013 Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN \u2013 released a joint statement<\/a> condemning<\/a> the ban: \u201cThe public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you realize how far south somebody has to go for Fox News to defend CNN?\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cThe White House press pool is more of a mess than that reflecting pool<\/a> right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump\u2019s dramatic White House media ban and casual disregard of the first amendment.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-779578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}