ONE has to wonder how long it took NOT MY pres drumpf / trump to figure out these people were making fun of him! He really is an idiot you know. The fight to defend our democratic Republic continues! Check this out from late night Dutch TV. From the Washington Post.....
Late-night hosts pretend to flatter Trump after Kimmel’s removal from ABCJon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers also proclaimed their support for fellow comedian Jimmy Kimmel and spoke about the dangers of threatening free speech.
Jon Stewart usually only hosts “The Daily Show” on Mondays, with guest hosts filling in the rest of the week. But on Thursday night, Stewart made a special appearance.
“From Comedy Central, it’s the all-new, government-approved ‘Daily Show’ with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart!” the announcer said at the top of the show. Stewart appeared at his desk, with the background of the studio transformed into a gilded gold space.
“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart said, his eyes darting nervously around. He noted that the show was being broadcast from “the crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster! Like no one’s ever seen before! Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?”
This bit continued for the next 20-plus minutes as a response to Disney-owned ABC’s decision on Wednesday to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air indefinitely following conservative backlash over Kimmel’s remarks in his monologue Monday night. Kimmel, who has hosted the show since 2003, said: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Nexstar, the country’s largest owner of ABC affiliate stations, said it would not air Kimmel’s show and called the comments “offensive and insensitive,” while Sinclair Broadcast Group, which also owns local ABC stations, said Kimmel should apologize to the family of Kirk, the right-wing influencer who was killed last week. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested that Disney’s broadcast licenses could be in jeopardy. An ABC spokesperson did not comment beyond saying that the show will be preempted “indefinitely.”
Trump, who has complained about being the target of Kimmel’s jokes, in a social media post congratulated ABC “for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.” Later, at a news conference, he said Kimmel was “fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else,” adding: “You can call that free speech or not.”
Reaction throughout the day Thursday included celebration from Kimmel’s critics and horror from those who see this as a government crackdown on censorship and a threat to free speech — and there was curiosity about what late-night comedians would say about one of their own. The hosts mostly had the same theme, mocking the idea that they can now only say nice things about the president.
Stewart kicked it off with his faux-flattery, showing clips of the president during his recent trip to the United Kingdom. “Father has been gracing England with his legendary warmth and radiance,” Stewart said, and then shouted: “Gaze upon him, with a gait even more majestic than that of the royal horses that pranced before him!”
He kept the same tone as the show played a video of a reporter who asked Trump about Kimmel and whether free speech is more under attack in Britain or America.
“How dare you!” Stewart yelled. “ … You may call it free speech in jolly old England, but in America we have a little something called the First Amendment. And let me tell you how it works. There’s something called a talent-o-meter. It’s a completely scientific instrument that is kept on the president’s desk … measured mostly by niceness to the president.”
If this “talent-o-meter” goes below a certain level, Stewart continued, “the FCC must be notified to threaten the acquisition prospects for billion-dollar mergers of network affiliates. These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to the even larger megacorporation that controls the flow of state-approved content, or the FCC can just choose to threaten those licenses directly. It’s basic science.” (Nexstar needs the FCC’s cooperation for its proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of another broadcast company, TEGNA.)
Meanwhile, on NBC, “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon — whom Trump just called on NBC to fire, along with the network’s Seth Meyers — said Kimmel is “a decent, funny, loving guy” and that he hopes his show returns. Fallon added that a lot of people are worried about censorship, but he was determined to cover the president’s trip to Britain like he normally would — leading to a segment where Fallon tried to talk, but an announcer kept interrupting him.
Fallon: “Well, guys, President Trump just wrapped up a three-day trip to the U.K. and he — ”
Announcer: “Looked incredibly handsome.”
Fallon: “As always, his tie was — ”
Announcer: “Exactly the right length.”
Fallon: “And his face looked — ”
Announcer: “Like a color that exists in nature.”
Fallon: “And his hair looked — ”
Announcer: “Better than Conrad’s from ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty.’”
Fallon: “During the trip, protesters managed to project images onto the sides of Windsor Castle of Trump standing next to his good friend Jeff — ”
Announcer: “Goldblum.”
On “Late Night,” Meyers, one of the more vocal Trump critics, employed a similar tactic: “I just want to say before we get started here that I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump,” as the audience guffawed. “I’ve always believed he was … a visionary, an innovator. A great president and even better golfer. And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI. I have been told there’s some clips of me on the internet making jokes about him from a few years back, those are obviously deepfakes.”
Meyers then played videos of Trump proclaiming he brought back free speech: “Trump promised to end government censorship and bring back free speech, and he’s doing the opposite. And it has experts worried they were rapidly devolving into a repressive autocracy in the style of Russia or Hungary much faster than anyone could have predicted.”
“It’s a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show every night,” Meyers added, calling this a pivotal moment in our democracy. “I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we’re going to keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it, with enthusiasm and integrity.”
Over on “The Late Show” on CBS, Stephen Colbert started with a parody of the “Beauty and the Beast” song “Be Our Guest” called “Shut Your Trap,” aimed at Disney’s TV networks: “The new rule at ABC / Don’t make fun of Donny T. … Or your show will scrapped / Shut your trap.” Then he briefly slipped back into his former character as host of the “Colbert Report,” declaring that he was the new “Late Show” ombudsman.
But he got more serious in his monologue and said he stood by Kimmel: “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. And if ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive, and clearly, they’ve never read the children’s book ‘If You Give a Mouse a Kimmel,’” Colbert said.
He called Carr an “individually wrapped hard-boiled egg that they sell at the airport” and pointed to how Carr described Kimmel’s comments as “some of the sickest conduct possible.” Colbert then showed the clip of Kimmel’s monologue and expressed disbelief: “Given the FCC’s response, I was expecting something more, you know, provocative. That’s like hearing that Playboy has a racy new centerfold and finding out it’s just Jimmy Kimmel.”
Colbert brought up the potential Nexstar merger with TEGNA, and pretended to be absolutely shocked. In June, CBS announced it was ending Colbert’s show next year and that it was “purely a financial decision”; though many wondered if it had to do with CBS parent company Paramount’s merger with Skydance that needed FCC approval.
“So a company apparently capitulating to the whims of the president, in order to ensure their merger goes through? Has that ever happened before?” Colbert asked and then looked off to the side of the stage. “What’s that? … Oh, I’m being told not to answer that question.”
By Emily Yahr
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