Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel returned to air on Monday night with harsh words for the thousands of Americans in more than a dozen states who protested against shelter-in-place mandates over the weekend as shutdowns across the country extended into another month. Kimmel highlighted a few of the more outrageous examples – a woman demanding “give me liberty of give me death” outside a Baskin-Robbins in California, signs that read “I want a haircut!” and “Jesus is my vaccine” and a standoff in Denver in which a protester shouted “go to China if you want communism” to an angry healthcare worker in scrubs.

“Well you know what they say: it ain’t over until the fat lady screams crazy rightwing talking points at a medical professional who’s trying to save their family’s lives,” said Kimmel.

“A big reason why these protests are gaining steam is because our president is encouraging them,” Kimmel continued. “Despite everyone who works for him telling people to stay at home, despite the official White House mandate being shelter in place, over the weekend the guy who runs the White House tweeted ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN,’ ‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA’ and ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA’. This from a man who refuses to even liberate Melania.”

Kimmel cut to the chase on Trump’s support of the protests: “It really is irresponsible to the most unbelievable degree to be saying these things.”

“I’m starting to think these characters who support Trump might be suicidal – they seem to fight hardest for the things that will kill them. They want freedom to gather in large groups during an epidemic, they want guns, they want pollution,” Kimmel said, in reference to other far-right views which bled into the protests. “I figured it out – they want to die and they’re taking us down with them. It’s like if the Titanic were headed for the iceberg and half of the passengers were like ‘could you please speed this thing up?’”

Trevor Noah

On the Daily Social Distancing Show, Trevor Noah referred to the same protests this weekend, in which thousands demanded an immediate reopening of the country. “Let’s be honest, people – this is both insane and counter-productive, because the more you gather in groups, the longer the lockdown will have to go on,” Noah said, noting that the protests “have clearly been infused with far-right ideology” such as Maga hats, antisemitic signs and Confederate flags (in Michigan, so noted for its southern heritage).

Trump and Fox News team up with right-wing protesters around the country to ask: How can we get these infection numbers up? pic.twitter.com/Np65u5feyh — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 21, 2020

“It would be a lot easier to take these protests seriously if they were just being fueled by Fox News and internet conspiracy theories,” said Noah, but “the problem is that all of these morons also have the support of the moron-in-chief.” Noah pointed to Trump’s press briefings over the weekend, in which he excused the protests as cabin fever and praised the protesters’ efforts.

“We’re almost used to Trump drumming up outrage for his political benefit,” Noah explained of his comments. “But what makes what he’s doing now particularly vile is that on Thursday, he announced guidelines for when states should open back up, and then spends the rest of the weekend urging his followers to fight back against the same guidelines that he released.”

Noah called the flip-flop “insane – it’s like Trump is a head coach who told his team to kick a field goal and now he’s on the sidelines heckling them for doing that”.

Stephen Colbert

And on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert also condemned Trump’s encouragement of the protests, particularly his tweet “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

“Ah yes, the second amendment is so important right now,” Colbert deadpanned, “because if you run out of Lysol, you can just shoot your groceries.

“To be clear: Trump is encouraging his followers to protest his own recommendation,” he continued. “That’s how much he needs to hear a chanting mob. He’s like angry Tinkerbell – ‘Quick, kids, scream lock her up! Or I’ll die.’”

Colbert also recapped other “dumb stuff” Trump said at his “daily screamers” this weekend, such as how he “continued to defend the job he’s done on testing – and by defend, I mean lie through his teeth”.

Meanwhile, reporter Jeremy Diamond from CNN pushed back on Trump’s self-praise in said conference, asking if it’s really the time to praise his own administration when 22 million Americans are out of work and more than 40,000 have died from the virus. Trump denied praising himself, the logic of which Colbert summarized as: “Look, there’s never been a president who makes it less about me than me. Honestly, I don’t get enough credit for making this not about me. I should get a medal that says ‘Most About Not Me’.”