Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert entered Wednesday’s Late Show “emotionally and spiritually refreshed” after a Connecticut jury ordered Alex Jones to pay nearly $1bn to Sandy Hook families in a defamation case. Jones has for years falsely claimed that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax.
“You know how as humans, we have to accept the fact that sometimes bad things happen to good people?” said Colbert. “Well, by the grace of God, sometimes bad things happen to Alex Jones.”
The $965m verdict follows a Texas ruling which ordered Jones to pay $50m to another Sandy Hook family, bringing his total bill to over $1bn.
“You heard that right: billion with a capital BYEEEE,” cheered Colbert. “And that’s it. That’s that story. Lot of other stories to talk about tonight but I’d be just as happy to stand here and grin.”
Colbert turned to another person having a rough go of it: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “First, he renamed Facebook Meta, as in he never met a democracy he couldn’t destroy,” Colbert joked.
The company’s stock price has also tumbled nearly 60% in the past year, as Meta has struggled with its titular metaverse, where Zuckerberg envisions, according to a New York Times report, “billions” of people inhabiting “immersive digital environments for hours on end, working, socializing and playing games”.
“And you know how you don’t want to do any of the things I just described to you?” Colbert commented. “Zuckerberg thinks you do, because his head is up an immersive experience called his butt.”
Trevor Noah
Let's be real, if stumbling over words disqualified someone from politics, America wouldn't have had a president for the last six years pic.twitter.com/NBgSE1jIBW
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) October 13, 2022
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah homed in on the Pennsylvania Senate race between GOP candidate and “proof that Oprah makes mistakes” Dr Mehmet Oz and the Democrat, former lieutenant governor John Fetterman.
Fetterman, who endured a stroke in May and has since curtailed campaign appearances, gave his first in-person sit down interview to NBC News this week, using a prompter to help with difficulty interpreting auditory speech. He discussed how recovery from the stroke deepened his empathy, and stumbled over the pronunciation of “empathy”.
“Obviously, you’ve got people on the right saying Fetterman forgot a word, and he can’t understand speech, so he’s not fit for the Senate,” said Noah. “And look, this is politics, so I get it. People will jump on any weakness to give their party an advantage. I understand that.
“But let’s be real, people. If stumbling over a word every now and again disqualified you from politics, America wouldn’t have had a president for the past six years.”
“At least Fetterman acknowledged that he messed up the word and corrected himself,” he added. “Biden wouldn’t have noticed,” while Trump “would’ve tried to convince us that he actually got the word right.”
As for using a prompter to help with the processing of speech, “is that really a dealbreaker?” Noah asked. “In fact, if you ask me, I think America needs more people in politics who actually know how to read,” he said over photos of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker.
“If anything, needing captions is super relatable these days,” he continued. “Have you tried watching House of the Dragon without captions? It’s impossible. I mean, half the characters have the same name.”
More seriously, he concluded, “this whole debate is veering into the territory of saying that people with disabilities cannot be lawmakers, which is trash.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers reacted to reports that the justice department believes Trump has still more classified documents that he has not returned to the National Archives. “Oh, does the justice department suspect that Donald Trump may not be fully cooperative?” Meyers deadpanned. “That’s like a guy with claw marks all over his face telling you his cat wasn’t fully cooperative with its Halloween costume.
“Of course Donald Trump has more government documents in his possession,” Meyers continued. “He’s not the kind of guy who’s good at returning things. If Donald Trump borrows your lawnmower, you’re going to need a new lawnmower.”
Trump has appealed the FBI’s seizure of top-secret documents at Mar-a-Lago to the supreme court, but the justice department has asked the court to reject Trump’s appeal. “It’s obvious,” said Meyers. “There’s no reason the supreme court or any court should step in to delay the investigation because the classified documents are obviously not his.
“Do we really need nine people in robes to tell us that this is just stuff he brought with him from home?” he added. “Trump’s acting like a guy who got fired and then tried to leave with a copy machine.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And Jimmy Kimmel responded to a statement from the National Archives refuting Trump’s claim in numerous rallies that every president takes home classified documents after their time in office. “How much time has this government wasted refuting this man’s lies?” he wondered. “He says things he knows aren’t true.
“I know what he’s doing,” he added. “This is just what happens when I try to put my kids to bed – he’s stalling.
“His plan is just to keep kicking the can until he kicks the can.”
Kimmel also celebrated the verdict ordering Alex Jones to pay nearly $1bn to Sandy Hook families. “He tormented these families,” he said. “I guess the good guys just won the info wars, is just what happened right there.”
