Late-night hosts recapped Donald Trump’s state visit to Japan as the government shutdown continued into its fourth week.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the comedian checked in on Trump’s visit to Japan this week. “You know, when Trump visits, you have to find something to do with him,” he said. “You can’t just take him for a stroll around town.
“So instead, you take him for a stroll inside a palace, where he gets uncomfortably close to the band,” he said over footage of Trump wandering aimlessly through a ballroom with the Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. “It’s like he’s lost at the mall.”
Takaichi later joined Trump on the USS Washington, where she “got to hear him ramble to our troops about a range of subjects, including magnets”, Kimmel reported. “He hates magnets, windmills and sharks. But he loves steam,” as the president went on and on about the steam-powered aircraft carriers, and said he would revert to steam power via executive order.
“While Trump’s slurping noodles in Japan, we’re on day 28 of his big, beautiful government shutdown,” Kimmel added. In Washington, the speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, maintained that there was nothing Trump could do about the shutdown. “The guy who’s ended eight wars, a man who ended wars that never even started, can’t do anything about this?” Kimmel marveled.
Johnson’s apathetic stance has angered even far-right members of his own party, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who reportedly lashed out at him on a private phone call and demanded to see the Republican plan for healthcare. Johnson refused, “because there is no Republican plan for healthcare”, said Kimmel. “The reason Mike Johnson won’t share the plan for healthcare is the same reason George Santos won’t show you his volleyball trophies: they do not exist.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert started by thanking “the wonderful people of Japan” for “taking in our president for a few days, so the rest of us can just have a little break”.
“Japan is trying to get on Trump’s good side to escape his random tariff spree,” by giving fireworks and 250 cherry trees to the US. “Or, as it will be known in history books: how Eric Trump started the DC wildfires,” Colbert joked.
Trump, as commander in chief, also visited with American troops stationed in Japan, and “he announced a new military target: it’s you.”
As Trump put it: “We can’t have cities that are troubled, we’re sending in our national guard, and we need more than the national guard … because we’re going to have safe cities.”
“There it is, in plain English, telling the military he’s going to use them to invade America,” Colbert reiterated. “But just a warning to the troops: that country is run by a madman, OK? It will take you years to install a democracy by this point.
“And those American cities better watch out,” he added, “because according to Trump, our military is set to go GI Joe.”
Trump continued: “Nobody makes equipment like we do, nobody makes the ammunition, the weapons, the missiles, planes, none of it. And if they do, the American sailor stands ready to crush them and sink them and wreck them and blast them into oblivion.”
“Inspiring words,” Colbert deadpanned.
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers began with Trump’s claim this week that he was getting “the best polling numbers I’ve ever received”.
“I don’t know if the people around you are showing the real numbers,” Meyers responded. “Did the newspaper they showed you also have a picture of Stephen Miller as a sheriff?”
Trump and Melania will reportedly host a Halloween celebration at the White House on Thursday, “but it looks like they already left their jack-o’-lantern out too long”, Meyers joked next to a photo of an over tanned Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
The White House also posted a timeline in defense of its harshly criticized East Wing demolition that “features so-called major events that took place at the White House”, Meyers said, including the supposed “discovery” of cocaine in the White House during the Biden presidency. “OK, but it clearly wasn’t his,” said Meyers next to a photo of Biden sleeping at his desk. “Look at him – he’s like the bear they put on tea.”
And Tesla issued a recall for more than 63,000 Cybertrucks because the front lights are too bright. “Apparently, you can see people laughing at you from up to 300 yards away,” Meyers quipped.
