Seth Meyers on Trump’s White House demolition: ‘This is insane’ | Late-night TV roundup

Late-night hosts dissect Donald Trump’s kingly behavior, from the destruction of the White House’s East Wing to his demand for payment from the justice department.

Seth Meyers

“We have warned for years that Donald Trump is destroying American institutions,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday evening, “but of course when we said ‘destroying,’ we meant metaphorically speaking. We didn’t mean that he was literally destroying buildings.”

“But I guess Trump heard that and thought, ‘On it.’ Because now he’s literally destroying the East Wing of the White House,” the Late Night host continued. The previously unannounced construction comes just days after record-breaking No Kings protests against Trump’s behavior as president, and as fellow Republicans continue to claim that he does not act like an authoritarian leader.

“You guys, they’re right. Trump is not a king!” Meyers joked. “A king is someone who presumes the power to do whatever they want without consulting someone else. Someone who treats public property and public resources of the state as their own. Someone who surrounds themselves with lavish appointments and gilded furnishings and the trappings of wealth and power.”

Such as, say, a $250m, 90,000 sq ft gilded ballroom, as Trump has unilaterally proposed for the White House. “This is insane,” said Meyers over a photo of the demolished East Wing. “This looks like a scene from an apocalyptic disaster movie. This is the first thing aliens do in movies to announce they’re evil. They blow up the White House. Trump is just cutting out the middleman of invading aliens.”

“No one was consulted about this,” he added. “No one approved of this. Congress certainly didn’t get a say. The White House isn’t Trump’s – it’s supposed to be ours.”

Between this and his demand that the justice department pay him as punishment for investigations against him, Trump “is responding to the massive and historic No Kings protests with two cartoonishly straightforward examples of kingly behavior.”

Stephen Colbert

“In the ongoing lowering of our national limbo bar, I gotta say: Donald Trump has proven himself to surprisingly limber for a man with those cankles,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. “Because in just the last 24 hours alone, he’s achieved two new lows.”

First, the White House demolition. And second, a demand of $230m from the justice department as compensation for cases against him stemming from his first term as president. And technically, as president again, he could now order the government to pay him. “Well, that doesn’t seem right,” said Colbert. “I mean, if you’re going to do that, why stop at $230m? Why don’t you just let him go to Fort Knox, lose the pants and go Scrooge McDuck into a pile of gold?”

“Now, if you’re saying ‘a judge would never allow that’ – oh you sweet, stupid child,” he added. “This don’t go before no judge.” They’re administrative claims that would be settled by senior officials in the Department of Justice … who are all appointed by Trump, some of whom once served on his personal legal team. “His own lawyers decide whether he wins,” Colbert reiterated. “It’s like that classic drama Twelve Angry Men Who Were All At My Bachelor Party.”

“This is so crazy, even Trump is aware of how insane the situation is,” he continued, pointing to comments Trump made just last week, where he acknowledges “it sorta looks bad, I’m suing myself”.

“Yeah, it looks bad. You sue you, and you get to decide which one of yous wins…I’m guessing you do,” said Colbert. “It’s an endless loop of corruption, like mobious grift. I think they call it the circle of jerk.”

The Daily Show

And on The Daily Show, Michael Kosta also looked into Trump’s $230m demand from his own government. “I know it’s not exactly what Black people wanted, but the American government is finally paying reparations,” Kosta joked. “Well, it is to an old white millionaire president, but that’s why you need to be more specific when you’re manifesting.”

Kosta pointed out that the people in charge of approving the payment, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, used to work for Trump’s legal team.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Todd Blanche will take his time and very carefully consider … what color pen he will use to sign the check over to his president boss,” Kosta said. “Let me spell this out for you: Trump’s own former lawyers are the ones who get to decide if Trump gets this payout from the government that Trump is in charge of.”

“So if you can’t believe how good Trump’s luck is, he also can’t seem to believe it,” he added before a clip of Trump in the Oval Office calling the situation “awfully strange”.

“It seems like even Trump is suspicious about how easy this is,” Kosta concluded. “This must be how those thieves at the Louvre felt – ‘So, all I need is a ladder? I thought this would be way more complicated. I’ll steal these invaluable jewels, I guess.’”