Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers continued his deep dive into evidence of GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 election on Thursday’s Late Night, such as text messages from Republican lawmakers to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Just after the election, one unnamed lawmaker suggested a plan to have swing states declare themselves for Donald Trump before the results were declared.
“HERE’S and AGRESSIVE STRATEGY [sic],” the lawmaker wrote. “Why can t [sic] the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS.”
“Anytime someone starts a text with the words ‘here’s an aggressive strategy’, don’t open the attachment,” said Meyers. “Also the random capitalization is a hint that whatever that person is telling you is going to be super insane.”
“Despite all of this incontrovertible evidence – the text messages, the secret memos, all the smoking guns we’ve found out about in the last year – propagandists in the GOP and on Fox News are still trying to rewrite history,” Meyers continued.
He pointed to Fox News contributor Lara Trump, who tried to argue on-air this week that the president warned Congress about the 6 January attack on the Capitol. “They all know that Donald Trump didn’t orchestrate this whole thing,” Lara Trump said. “He didn’t tell people to go to the Capitol and break in. He said, ‘Let’s peacefully and patriotically make our voices heard.’ But he tried to warn them.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Meyers marveled. “Trump tried to warn people about the coup he fomented? Do you mean like the way a serial killer tells the cops about his next move?
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert tore into Republican congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who the day before the insurrection texted Meadows with a plan to prevent the legitimate winner of the election, Joe Biden, from taking office. “On January 6, 2021, Vice-President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all,” Jordan texted.
Jordan has said he forwarded the message written by Joseph Schmitz, a former US defense department inspector general who outlined a “draft proposal” to pressure Pence to refuse to certify the election results, and that Meadows knew the message was forwarded.
“Well, so what? That’s not a defense,” said Colbert. “That’s like saying, ‘I didn’t cook the meth, I just sold it at the Gymboree. Those toddlers are going to lose their teeth anyways.’”
Colbert also ripped the “months-long campaign of subversion” by half a dozen Republican lawmakers, including Jordan, Scott Perry, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks and Andy Biggs. The “Steal Team Dicks” fomented distrust over the election result and planned to derail the symbolic certification of the election before the insurrection thwarted the vote.
“So they were ready to reject the delegates, seize the ballots and overturn the election, but they were interrupted by the out-of-control mob their lies had created,” Colbert explained. “It reminds me of the words of founding father Benjamin Frankenstein: ‘I’m hearing reports it was Antifa who destroyed the village!’”
Trevor Noah
What is China doing in Africa?
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) December 17, 2021
If you don’t know, now you know. pic.twitter.com/Zu1UbXJj5V
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah explained how China is building up influence in Africa through binding investments. In recent years, China has pumped money into the continent with large infrastructure projects funded by China’s Export Import bank. “That’s right, baby, China has been making it rain in Africa,” Noah explained. “It’s the most money anyone has sent to Africa without being guilt-tripped by a celebrity singalong.”
The funding is presented as no strings attached, since “China doesn’t care about your government, or human rights, or anything”, Noah said. “They’re basically the cool mom of international finance. ‘Oh, you and your friends, you want to come party this weekend? Well come to our basement with your child soldiers, we didn’t hear a thing!’”
Well this can be a good arrangement for countries looking to build up their infrastructure after decades of extractive colonialism, “it won’t come as a surprise that China isn’t just giving away billions of risky loans to Africa out of the goodness of its heart”, said Noah.
China has used its investments to pressure countries toward its political agenda; the more a country agrees with China’s voting line in UN general assemblies, the more infrastructure money they receive. “That’s the power of money right there,” said Noah. “Enough of it, and it can make you switch allegiances, change your principles, do anything. Hell, for enough money, you could probably get Africans to start saying that Africa is just one country.”
Because these projects create mostly low-paying jobs for locals, with managerial positions and resource control going to Chinese companies and nationals, “when you start to examine this relationship as a whole, it actually starts to look a lot less like a loan and a lot more like a new kind of colonialism”, Noah said.
Especially when those loans aren’t repaid – many have accused China of engaging in “debt colonialism”, or providing loans they know countries can’t pay off, thus trapping them in deals which shift natural resources and influence into Chinese hands.
“What China’s doing is a lot like ‘terms and conditions’,” Noah concluded. “They know Africa can’t afford not to take the deals that they offer. And then, when Africa can’t pay it back, the Chinese are like, ‘Right, we’re taking all your shit, and if you don’t like it, read the fine print!’”
