Stephen Colbert
Late-night hosts speculated over whether Taylor Swift would attend the Super Bowl now that her beau Travis Kelce will be playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, who take on the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas in two weeks.
“The whole thing has been great for the NFL and for dads who struggle to bond with their teenage daughters,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday’s Late Show.
Swift mania has fully taken over the NFL, he noted, as American Airlines announced it would rename the flight from Kansas City to Las Vegas for the game to AA1989, in honor of Swift’s album and “also the last year they checked the bolts on that plane”.
It’s still unclear whether the pop star will be able to attend the game, as she is scheduled to perform a concert in Tokyo the day before. “It’s just too stressful!” said Colbert of the potential travel logistics. “Why can’t she just do a concert closer, like Paris or Venice or New York? They’re all there, in Vegas.
“Of course, I hope Taylor makes it, because I really want to watch the Apple Music Super Bowl Half-time Show starring Shaky Footage of Taylor Swift Cheering in a Skybox, featuring Usher,” he added.
In other news, a New York jury ordered Donald Trump to pay a whopping $83.3m to E Jean Carroll for defamation. The former columnist promised to “give the money to something Donald Trump hates”.
“Well, congrats on the payday, Eric,” Colbert quipped.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers touched on Nikki Haley’s unlikely yet ongoing campaign for the Republican nomination for president. “I will say, there is something very karmic about her candidacy,” he said. “Like, you know how Donald Trump is so irritating to the rest of us, how we wake up every day asking, ‘Why the fuck are you still here?’ That’s how Donald Trump feels about Nikki Haley.
“He wants her to go away so badly,” he continued, “yet she’s still in the race and ramping up attacks on him, focusing specifically on his mental state.”
Haley called the former president “unhinged” at a rally in South Carolina, “which is both correct and a little rich coming from Nikki Haley”, said Meyers, as Haley worked under Trump as his UN ambassador in 2017 and 2018, “a time no one recalls as the ‘hinged’ years”.
In response, Trump brought up the old cognitive tests again, and his alleged ability to pass them; at a campaign stop, he claimed, “only about 2% of this room could do it.”
“Historically, it would be considered a gaffe when a candidate for higher office told a group of voters they’re so dumb only 2% of them could answer which one is the lion,” said Meyers. “But Trump does it and he gets an applause break. I guess America is divided.”
As for the defamation trial verdict ordering Trump to pay $83.3m to E Jean Carroll – “that really is a shocking number,” said Meyers. “That’s three times the supposed market value of Mar-a-Lago. Trump would have to sell Mar-a-Lago three times. The only person who’d fall for that is Rudy Giuliani, and he doesn’t have any money either.”
Jimmy Fallon
And on the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon also anticipated the upcoming Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. “This matchup is a repeat of 2020,” he noted. “That’s why the only thing I’m serving at my Super Bowl party are sourdough bread and a keg of Purell. Maybe put a little Tiger King on in the background, I don’t know.
“So at least that’s one 2020 rematch we’re excited about,” he added over a photo of Trump and Biden.
“There are so many questions about this Super Bowl: can the 49ers contain Patrick Mahomes?” said Fallon. “Can the Chiefs stop Christian McCaffrey? And the one that most people care about: can Taylor Swift make it there because she has a concert in Japan the day before?!”
Between the Super Bowl and Swift, he added, “ratings are going to be higher than Snoop Dogg at a Willie Nelson concert.”
Fallon also touched on Trump’s $83m defamation penalty. “And in a related story, a bunch of classified documents just turned up on eBay,” he quipped. “Trump’s about to go from fake billionaire to fake millionaire.”
