Today’s indictment of Donald Trump quickly became tonight’s punchline for TV’s late-night hosts.
Trump arch-nemesis Jimmy Kimmel said he found out about Trump’s indictment less than two hours before walking onstage, but the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host had no problem filling most of his monologue with Trump jokes, including “The ‘J’ in ‘Donald J. Trump’ now stands for ‘Jail,’ ” and, “He’s going to be read his Miranda Rights. Wait until he finds out that all this time he had the right to be silent.”
Kimmel also had some suggested titles for new reality series Trump might sell, given his circumstances. Among them: The Celebrity Apprehentice, Arrested Developer and, of course, the all-purpose Biggest Loser.
Kimmel had earlier tweeted a video of himself walking out to rapturous applause and, taking a page out of Trump’s book, hugging a flag. “A day many of us thought would never come!” read the caption.
Stephen Colbert started his monologue by saying, “Literally, three minutes before I walked out on the stage here, the New York Times reported that a New York Jury voted to indict former President Donald J. Trump.” The Late Show host celebrated by eating s heaping helping of ice cream and squirting whipped cream into his mouth.
Colbert then gloated a bit, savoring the moment.
“I used to think maybe it’ll never come, [that] it didn’t matter if it came; I didn’t know it would feel this good,” he said with a smile.
Colbert had some advice for the Manhattan District Attorney who brought the charges against the former Apprentice host: “Alvin Bragg better have some tiny handcuffs,” it tweeted. Another social post showed host Stephen Colbert enjoying Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, and something else.
John Leguizamo guest-hosted The Daily Show on Comedy Central and reveled in the news triggered by alleged hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential compaign. After showing a clip from a local New York TV newscast, he said, “That’s right — Lady Justice grabbed Trump by the p*ssy. And you know I take a stance against mass incarceration, but for this I’m willing to make an exception. I just hope they take it easy on him and put him in a cell with his lawyer.”
Watch here:
Later, Leguizamo had New York Rep. Ritchie Torres on who, it turns out, seemed as well suited to hosting the show as guesting on it. Torres came armed with a multitude of pretty-good George Santos jokes, as well as one about Trump.
“Of all the crimes he’s committed in his life,” said Torres, “I never thought in my wildest dreams that he would be taken down by hush payments to a porn star. So he’s like the Al Capone of American Politics.
Meanwhile, over on NBC, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon also weighed in on the big news of the day, posting a supercut mashup of Trump singing — and dancing — along to a tweaking version of a 1980s Pointer Sisters hit:
But, unfortunately for NBC’s later late-night show:
Kimmel also tweeted out an Orange Is the New Black-inspired deepfake video of Trump musing from jail.
Even Fox News’ Gutfeld! chimed in — with a promo of who is on the show tonight:
We’ll add more video as it becomes available.
