Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel recapped yet another tell-all book from the Trump administration on Tuesday evening. The latest release, from former White House press secretary and Melania’s chief of staff Stephanie Grisham, is called I’ll Take Your Questions Now, and “you’re not going to believe this, turns out this Trump character is a real nut,” Kimmel deadpanned.
Revelations include: Trump cuts his own hair with a giant pair of scissors; he acted “tougher” with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on camera and chummier off it; and a White House “music man” (Grisham’s boyfriend at the time) would play Trump’s favorite show tunes to calm him down when he was on the brink of a temper tantrum. His top choice was reportedly Memory, from Cats – “of course that’s Trump’s favorite show,” Kimmel remarked. “From the only musical that grabs you by the pussy – Cats!”
Grisham, who “sat quietly and watched all this lunacy go down,” also admits she should have spoken up more. “More? In the nine months she was press secretary, she didn’t hold a single press conference,” Kimmel said. “She should’ve spoken up once. That would’ve been more than nothing.”
“It’s not just her,” he added. “All these so-called ‘adults in the room,’ as they liked to call themselves – if the president is snorting Adderall and throwing fried chicken at foreign leaders, maybe don’t wait three years to put it in a book.”
Grisham also revealed that Trump’s mysterious trip to Walter Reed hospital in 2019, which some suspected was for a heart attack or other medical condition, was actually for a colonoscopy. Trump received the procedure without anesthesia, because he didn’t want to temporarily cede power to Mike Pence and feared becoming the butt of late-night television jokes.
“It gives me a lot of satisfaction as a late-night talk show host to know that he opted to stay awake while they augured his innards with a sewer snake, specifically because he didn’t want us making fun of him,” said Kimmel, who then rifled through a litany of colonoscopy joked such as: “took awhile because the doctor kept accidentally sticking the camera in his mouth.”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert anticipated a game of chicken over the debt ceiling in Congress, which could lead to a government shutdown this week. If Republicans do not agree to raise the ceiling, the US could default on its debts by 18 October. A default would likely lead to “financial Armageddon” – interest rates would spike, the value of the US dollar would decline, the cost of home and auto loans would climb; one study predicted a default would plunge the US into an immediate recession that would wipe out 6m jobs and $15tn in wealth.
“So, what’s the hang-up?” Colbert asked. “Well, no surprise, it’s Senate minority leader and great goblin from the Hobbit” Mitch McConnell, who got every Republican in the Senate to oppose raising the debt ceiling so that Democrats would have to do it without Republican votes. His justification, as McConnell explained on the Senate floor, is that “bipartisanship is not a light switch, a light switch that Democrats get to flip on when they need to borrow money, and switch off when they want to spend money.”
“Yes, bipartisanship is not a light switch – it’s a Peloton bike,” Colbert mocked, imitating McConnell’s drawl. “We talk a lot about having it, but we never actually turn it on.”
In lieu of a Senate vote, House majority leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are discussing alternative options, such as minting a trillion-dollar coin. “Oh good, because if there’s one thing people never lose, it’s coins,” Colbert joked. “Why not mint some trillion-dollar air pods?”
Trevor Noah
China is cracking down on everything from crypto and TikTok to celebrity fandoms.
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 29, 2021
Crazy what you can accomplish when you don’t have to worry about annoying things like democracy or human rights. pic.twitter.com/HflZdNsMSO
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah explained some of China’s crackdowns on technology. The Chinese government recently banned cryptocurrencies, claiming they disrupt the financial system and lead to money laundering and other crimes. “Damn, you know crypto’s got issues when the Chinese government thinks it’s too shady,” Noah remarked.
China has also instituted limits on video gaming; as of August, all citizens under 18 years old are limited to just an hour of gaming per day on weekends and holidays. “Of course, if you want to limit kids’ screen time, you can’t just stop at video games,” said Noah. “More and more, they’re spending their time on social media apps like TikTok. Which is why China is bringing down the hammer on that, too.”
China’s mandated “youth mode” for the country’s version of TikTok will limit users under 14 years old to only 40 minutes a day between 6am and 10pm. It’s bad news for the app, said Noah, because if “kids can only be online for 40 minutes a day, then the only people left on your app are going to be old people. And let’s be honest, you don’t need two Facebooks.”
“I’m not one of those people who thinks China made TikTok so they could steal everyone’s data and spy on their dance moves,” he continued, “but you have to admit: it is a little weird that they got the rest of us addicted, everywhere in the world, and then they turned to their kids and were like, ‘ok, you’ve gotta stop now.’”
