Late-night hosts discussed the ‘impeachment hearing’, Trump’s pitch to Latino voters, and why lightbulbs make him look orange

Jimmy Kimmel: ‘In his tanning chamber eating Popeye’s’

For the first time in a while, Jimmy Kimmel broadcast his show from the same city as the president, who was in Los Angeles for a campaign fundraiser. It was weird to think Trump was just a few miles away, Kimmel said, “in his hyperbaric tanning chamber eating all our Popeye’s chicken sandwiches”.

Trump is not popular in Los Angeles – he lost the city “by about 50 points, and it’s gone down from there”, Kimmel said. So who would host such an unpopular figure in the city? Geoff Palmer, a billionaire, who, Kimmel pointed out, is accused of ripping off his tenants in a class-action lawsuit. “Believe it or not, they have a lot in common,” Kimmel said.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski “testified” before the House judiciary committee – as in, he “dodged and stonewalled” every question, according to Kimmel. Lewandowski was part of the House panel’s first official “impeachment meeting” – though many Democrats still aren’t onboard with the idea of impeaching Trump.

For those still on the fence, Kimmel offered a pitch: the impeachment process would take months, with hours upon hours of testimony and hearings “all for our couch potato president to take in. He’ll be so busy watching and tweeting about it that just maybe he’ll forget all the other terrible things he wants to do.”

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House Democrats should consider that “impeachment is a good way to distract Donald Trump with the subject he cares about the most” – himself. “Basically, our president is an unruly child throwing a tantrum while we try to eat dinner at a restaurant,” Kimmel explained, “and impeachment is an iPad loaded with Paw Patrol.”

Stephen Colbert: ‘Your rallies do set a low bar’

Stephen Colbert celebrated his 800th Late Show on Tuesday night, a milestone he’ll also celebrate at this weekend’s Emmys in Los Angeles. It’s fitting that Trump was also in Los Angeles during Emmy week, Colbert said, since “he is up for outstanding achievement in visual effects for a Sharpie on a weather map”.

Sure, Trump is unpopular in California, Colbert explained on the rationale for an LA fundraiser, but “Hollywood is a thin layer of dirt, scattered over a pool of money – everyone wants to get their drill bit through that crust into that sweet, bubbling cash crude. They’re largely liberal, but there’s enough money that everyone, no matter how horrible, gets funded.”

Trump is, according to Colbert, the “Emoji Movie of candidates” – backed by some but desperate enough to appeal to people who likely want nothing to do with him, such as Latino voters in New Mexico.

Trump hosted a rally in the state Monday evening, where he tried to appeal to Latino voters “after four years of throwing Latinos under the bus that he stopped at the border, by saying that illegal and legal immigrants are all coming to kill us”, Colbert marveled.

“Trump has gotten a lot of criticism for his racist immigration policies, but he doesn’t understand why,” Colbert reflected on one segment of Trump’s speech in which he claimed he’s “the least racist person in this room”.

“Well … maybe. Your rallies do set a low bar,” quipped Colbert.

Trevor Noah: ’Like a much less successful 50 Cent’

On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah told the Tale of Two Rallies, starting with Elizabeth Warren’s in downtown Manhattan. Warren received loud cheers for her proposed wealth tax, in which multimillionaires were taxed two cents on every dollar after $50m, which got the crowd of 20,000 people chanting “two cents, two cents, two cents”.

“Not only is that a great chant, it also sounds like the name of a much less successful 50 Cent,” Noah joked.

The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) In dueling rallies, Warren discusses her plans for a wealth tax while Trump talks about… lightbulbs? pic.twitter.com/I9jcZMhNcC

Meanwhile, Trump’s rally in New Mexico, in which he tried to cater to Latino voters, “got a little uncomfortable”.

At one point, Trump asked conservative commentator Steve Cortes: “What do you like more, the country or the Hispanics?”

“What in brown Jesus’s name was that?” Noah asked, incredulous. “Those two things aren’t even in the same category! ‘What do you like more: Pepsi or Mongolia?’” It was also a bad question, Noah continued, “because it implies that Hispanics aren’t a part of the country”.

Trump also decried US energy regulations on lightbulbs, telling the crowd: “They took away our lightbulbs. I want an incandescent light, I want to look better.”

“Yep, that’s right – Trump wants to roll back energy regulations instituted by Bush and completed by Obama because he thinks he looks better under old lightbulbs,” Noah said, noting that “there are much easier ways to look better than rewriting US energy policy.” He could try a normal haircut, or a suit that fits, or “just standing next to Stephen Miller”.