Late-night hosts responded to the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting and Donald and Melania Trump’s attempts to blame political violence on Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes.
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart resumed his Monday night chair at the Daily Show less than two days after the shocking attack at the White House correspondents’ dinner on Saturday night, which resulted in the arrest of one man and, thankfully, no injuries. “It was supposed to be an evening of fun and merriment until, like most things in America, it was interrupted by gunfire,” Stewart said. “This is why we can’t have nice things. And to be perfectly frank, it’s not even a nice thing. Nobody wanted this fucking dinner in the first place!
“We’re so fucked in this country right now,” he added. “We can’t even pull off a dinner that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Hey, let’s celebrate the first amendment with an administration that’s doing everything it can do to destroy it.”
Stewart went on to replay some footage from the chaos during the attack, with clips of people grabbing bottles of alcohol for themselves and one man continuing to calmly eat his salad as Secret Service agents rushed to evacuate the president and thwart the attacker. “There have been times I have been very worried about artificial intelligence and whether or not it’s going to replace us,” Stewart responded. “And then there are other times where I think, ‘Hey, AI, can you start Monday?’”
There was much to decode in the reactions of various members of the Trump administration, from “JD Vance’s Dancing with the Stars quickstep exit to Pete Hegseth dropping a smoldering Blue Steel, to RFK Jr being whisked away by a Secret Service hive who apparently couldn’t spare one worker bee for, I don’t know, his wife,” said Stewart before pausing the clip on the health and human services secretary fleeing without his wife, Cheryl Hines.
“How fucked up is that scene?” Stewart wondered, even comparing it to footage of the hardline anti-immigrant Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, escorting his pregnant wife out of the room. “The guy who outshined you is Stephen fucking Miller,” Stewart marveled. “That’s who was more chivalrous. Stephen Miller, a guy who probably jerks off to the new Faces of Death movie. And now for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, your wife is gonna ask you a question no one’s ever asked before, ever: ‘Why can’t you be more like Stephen Miller?’”
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host began his monologue by addressing Melania Trump’s unusually public call for him to be fired for a joke he made days ahead of the White House correspondents’ dinner shooting. In his show last Thursday, Kimmel described the first lady as glowing “like an expectant widow”. Melania Trump accused him of “hateful and violent rhetoric” and “atrocious behavior”.
Kimmel did not apologize on Monday night, defending both his joke and the freedom of speech at large. “Obviously, it was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” he said. “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not – by any stretch of the definition – a call to assassination. And they know that.
“I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject,” he added. “I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it. Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I. Because under the first amendment, we have, as Americans, a right to free speech.”
Later in his monologue, Kimmel touched on Trump’s kneejerk response to the attack on Truth Social, where he wrote: “This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House.”
“The thing about Donald Trump – there’s nothing he couldn’t turn into a real estate opportunity,” Kimmel laughed. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I’m afraid that top secret ballroom is no longer top secret.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers also reacted to the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner with some relief, as no one was injured, though many were shaken up; Meyers played a clip of Wolf Blitzer, a CNN host, recounting the moments after the shooting, when he was pushed into a bathroom with 15 other guys by Secret Service agents.
“Three things: first, bravo to this officer for their quick reaction to make sure everyone is safe,” said Meyers. “Two, bravo to Wolf Blitzer for his invaluable reporting. And three, can you imagine being trapped in a men’s room with 15 other dudes? That is my actual nightmare. Because you know that somebody said, ‘well, if Wolf is in the room, there must be a situation!’ and then everybody had to fake laugh.
“Thankfully, everyone was safe, and some even enjoyed their salad,” he continued, referring to now-viral image of one man continuing to eat his burrata salad as chaos ensued around him. “Now the question is: what do we do about the rising tide of political violence in America? It’s unacceptable and has no place in a functioning democracy. Mr President, can you give us any guidance, any leadership? What’s one thing we can do?”
According to Trump, it’s build his massive gilded ballroom despite court orders to halt construction until the proper permits are obtained for his “Militarily Top Secret Ballroom”.
“This is the first I’m hearing that it’s a safe ballroom,” Meyers joked. “All I’ve ever heard is how it’s going to be big and beautiful, but now we’re shifting to safe? Man, I get it – when you want something as badly as you want your ballroom, you do what you can.”
Meyers also had a bone to pick with the term “militarily top secret” – “what do you mean it’s top secret?” he wondered. “You talk about it all the time! That’s the opposite of top secret. You literally held a poster board with designs for the ballroom you claimed is top secret.
“This is ‘militarily top secret’ in the same way a stealth bomber it would be if it was pulling a banner that read ‘invisible plane,’” he quipped.
“Political violence is unacceptable,” he later concluded. “It has no place in a functioning democracy. It would be nice if our politicians could lead by example and provide solutions for keeping all Americans safe. Instead, the president and his party seem focused on telling the world about his ‘militarily top secret ballroom’.”
