Late-night hosts couldn’t ignore the third-longest government shutdown in American history.

Seth Meyers

On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host minced no words in taking a closer look at the government shutdown. “There is no more basic test of a political leader than this: can you keep the government running?” he opened, comparing Trump to a guy running a pizza place who’s too stoned to unlock the front door.

As with the other hosts, Meyers listed some of the shutdown’s litany of costs, including a shortage of TSA agents during peak travel season. You didn’t think air travel could get any worse? Think again, Meyers said. By the end of Trump’s term, he said, “the only airline will be Spirit, the only in-flight movie will be Dirty Grandpa, and every seat will be a middle seat”.

In short, “We are in a self-inflicted crisis over a government shutdown because the president is incompetent and unhinged.”

Meyers also tackled the media planning to broadcast Trump’s primetime White House address over the proposed border wall.

“OK, first of all, just because Trump wants to address the nation doesn’t mean networks should air it. Otherwise, they’re just passing on his lies unfiltered,” Meyers said.

Instead, he offered an alternative. “They should either reject him outright or, if he insists on speaking in primetime, make him do it as a contestant on the Masked Singer.”

Stephen Colbert

After his own two-week shutdown, Stephen Colbert returned to his usual form: skewering the president, often in a decently convincing mock-Trump voice. In particular, Colbert looked at Trump’s claim, in a recent tweet, that his proposed border wall would actually be a “Steel Barrier rather than concrete” because it’s “both stronger & less obtrusive”.

“Oh thank goodness, the last thing you’d want in a border wall is something obtrusive,” Colbert joked. “That’s why they call it the ‘Inconspicuous Wall of China’.”

Instead of steel or concrete, Colbert suggested a more effective deterrent for migrants considering a journey across the border: Trump’s latest promotional photo, which borrows Game of Thrones language to declare “The Wall is Coming.”

“Forget the wall, just put that on the border!” Colbert said. “People will run: ‘Turn back amigo! There’s a giant bloated skin bag on the horizon! Get out of there!”

To be fair, Colbert continued, “I can understand why Trump loves that Game of Thrones wall, because the only walkers who got through were white.”

Unsurprisingly for a president whose signature campaign promise originated as a memory trick for stump speeches, Trump mixed up his Game of Thrones references. “Also you can’t say the wall is coming – that’s mixing up two different things in the series,” Colbert explained. “That’s like quoting The Godfather by saying ‘I’m going to make him an offer he can’t cannoli.’”

Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel, meanwhile, cut right to the chase. “Donald Trump is doing what Donald Trump does best: not paying the people who work for him,” he said in the show’s opening. “That is where he shines.”

Though this is the third-longest shutdown ever, Kimmel observed that it is “the first for no reason”, and lamented that “it’s unfortunate that these workers who have nothing to do with this ridiculous wall aren’t getting paychecks, especially right after the holiday.”

Kimmel then announced his personal plan to help out: hiring a federal employee for Jimmy Kimmel Live “tonight and every night until the shutdown is over”.

He then introduced John Kostelnik, a prison guard at the federal correctional complex in Victorville, California, who can now add another line to his résumé: temporary live tambourine player.

