Late-night hosts spoke about Bruce Springsteen’s anti-ICE song and Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on Ilhan Omar.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about Trump’s “plunging popularity over his goons’ brutality”, which has reportedly left him unsettled and backed into a corner, according to reports.
Colbert said that was the most dangerous place for him to be because “if you startle him when he’s cornered, he’ll inflate his neck pouch”.
The “incredibly unpopular mass deportations” have also led Bruce Springsteen to write a fiery anti-ICE song called Streets of Minneapolis.
The much-loved musician previously wrote a song about the Aids crisis called Streets of Philadelphia. “You really don’t want Bruce Springsteen to write a song about your streets, not even Sesame,” Colbert joked.
He called the song “poignant and powerful” and also asked: “Do you know how hard it is to rhyme with Minneapolis?”
Colbert said the song “sends a powerful message” as Springsteen was “as American as it gets”.
Trump is also planning to send ICE agents to the Winter Olympics in Milan, which Colbert called “a terrible idea”.
He said, “The only ice I wanna see at the Winter Olympics is ice dancing,” and added that Milan lawmakers were already angered by the decision and planning to deny entry to Trump’s “thugs”.
Colbert called it “America’s greatest insult to Italy since Olive Garden’s steak gorgonzola alfredo”.
He also mentioned the premiere of Melania, which took place last night in Washington DC with attenders including Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and some former NFL and UFC figures.
Colbert said it was “a bunch of people with brain damage … sat next to NFL players and UFC fighters”.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host also spoke about the Melania documentary, which has apparently netted the first lady $28m from Amazon.
“Everything is just so deeply corrupt but also preposterous,” he said.
Last night’s premiere was also attended by Nicki Minaj, Trump’s “new celebrity friend”, which Kimmel called “puzzling” as she entered the US as undocumented so is “exactly who ICE has been rounding up”.
This week has also seen the FBI raiding elections office records in Georgia to try to support Trump’s “widely debunked and ridiculed claims” about voter fraud in 2020.
“The election in 2020 wasn’t rigged, but it’s about to be,” Kimmel said, with many worrying the Republicans are trying to fix the midterm elections.
He then went back to the premiere of Melania, the “main event in Washington”, joking that “not since The Terminator has there been this much excitement for a film about a European cyborg”.
He compared the people attending the screening to the lineup of season 35 of Dancing With the Stars and played footage from Melania Trump’s Fox News promo interviews, where she was asked what her favourite time of day is.
Kimmel joked that her response would be “any time that Donald is taking a nap”.
The film is directed by Brett Ratner, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, “so Melania felt right at home on set”.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about what happened to the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar this week and how Trump “couldn’t help but say something insane about it”.
He spoke about the president’s recent social media storm, which included the “usual brain-worm stuff” but also a post about Walmart closures, which the company called fake.
Meyers said Trump “throws his slop into the world confidently”, such as his claims about how much money Omar is worth going from $30m to $45m, and “someone who believed those lies tried to attack” her this week at a town hall.
Trump quickly claimed she probably faked it herself.
“Trump and Maga always think that anything that doesn’t fit neatly within their preconceived worldview must be fake,” he said.
