Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s increasingly unhinged attempts to ensure a Republican victory at the midterms as well as his party’s embedded antisemitism.
Trevor Noah
Trick: Trump proposes ending birthright citizenship by executive order.
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 1, 2018
Treat: He can’t. #TrevorInMiami pic.twitter.com/10efWVvN9R
On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah noted that Halloween wasn’t an unusual day for the president. “He’s coming up with crazy shit all the time,” he said. “He doesn’t need a special day to scare people, he does it every day.”
He spoke about Trump’s latest obsession with ending birthright citizenship which would be at odds with the constitution. “Trump plans to singlehandedly change the constitution,” he said. “That’s like hearing War and Peace is going to be edited by Guy Fieri.”
He continued: “You don’t need to be a genius to realise Trump isn’t talking about babies that come from Norwegian vajayjays,” he said. “He wants to white out the constitution so he can whiten America.”
Even many of Trump’s allies have disputed his assertion that he can use an executive order to change the constitution, including Paul Ryan. “Wow. I guess for Halloween, he’s going as someone with balls,” Noah said.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also spoke about Trump’s latest tactics. “He’s tried everything to scare his base into voting for Republicans,” he said.
He continued: “The birthright citizenship issue is a transparent and racist ploy to turn out the Republican base for the midterms.”
Another ploy from Trump is to repeatedly make reference to the migrant caravan and put forward unsubstantiated claims. In a tweet he said that the caravan included fighters and people. “Does that mean some of the fighters aren’t people?” Colbert said. “Are they werewolves? Are they chupacabras? Are they Stephen Miller?”
Samantha Bee
On Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, the host started by saying “this week has been one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”
After the shooting in Pittsburgh, discussion over antisemitism in the US was reignited and Bee insisted that it’s an unavoidable part of the Republican party. “The truth is the Republican party tolerates antisemitism and benefits from it,” she said.
Bee then spoke about George Soros, frequently attacked by the right without any real evidence for a string of unhinged claims. “According to rightwing conspiracy theories George Soros is a demonic, Nazi, commie supervillain who controls everything from world governments to when people poop,” she said.
Bee continued: “The idea of Jews as wealthy, scheming world-dominators goes way back farther than 2010. It’s as old as Mike Pence thinks the earth is.”
She also showed a montage of sinister clips that showed rightwing figures speak negatively about Soros on Fox News. “Antisemitism isn’t unique to the right but right now it is shockingly mainstream in the Republican party,” she said. “Major elected officials drop dark Soros references constantly.”
Bee continued: “Republicans didn’t ask their supporters to take an AR-15 and massacre praying Jews but Republicans were speaking a language that shooter heard loud and clear.”
