Late-night hosts targeted Donald Trump over his beleaguered reputation while also finding time to look back at Bernie Sanders in the 1980s.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert opened his show with a profession of love for New York, mostly because it was not Washington DC. “It’s bad down there. It’s like the battle of Winterfell down there [in Washington DC].” Trump has asserted executive privilege over the full Mueller report, to which Colbert joked, “Executive privilege, of course, is actually Trump’s favorite privilege, right after white, male and Mar-a-Lago handicapped bathroom.”

Colbert also touched on the news that Barr has been held in contempt of Congress, to which his audience responded with cheers. Colbert said: “But really, it’s just a formality because as soon as you start working for Trump, you’re held in contempt by just about everybody.”

In the flurry of bad news for Trump, the New York Times obtained over 10 years of Trump’s taxes from the 80s and 90s. During this time, Trump reported $1.17bn in losses, which adjusted for inflation equals $2bn. “That is more than the GDP of Gambia. Or, as Trump might put it,” said the late-night host, leaning into his Trump impression, “‘I’m a shithole country now.’” Colbert pointed out this was Trump’s prime, when he crafted the image of a wealthy billionaire, despite these losses. “Remember his cameo as the fancy rich guy in Home Alone 2? Now, we know when he recorded that, he was so broke, he had to borrow money from the pigeon lady!” Trump responded to the report in a series of tweets, calling it a “highly inaccurate Fake News hit job” and saying his tax behavior was normal “sport”. Colbert pointed out the flaws in Trump’s logic: “So his argument is what he did was totally normal and also, he didn’t do it. Pick a lane, Mr President!”



Samantha Bee

Calling Donald Trump her “least favorite insufferable douchebag”, Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee discussed Trump’s poor attempt at hiding the Mueller report and the lengths he is willing to go to to hide the true depths of his crimes.

Representative Steve Chabot of Ohio called the findings of the Mueller investigation a “big fat zero”, to which Bee retorted: “Well, it’s a big fat zero plus a big fat 34 indictments plus a big fat 11 instances of possible obstruction of justice but it’s OK. We all round down to the nearest zero.”

The host then poked fun at Trump’s finances. “It turns out Trump is the best at being terrible.” Bee highlighted not only that Trump lost more money year after year than any other individual US taxpayer, but also that the former businessman, at one point, accounted for nearly two cents of every business dollar loss in America. The late-night host responded to this news, “I used to think Donald Trump’s fortunes took a dip in the early-90s recession. Now I think maybe he was the early-90s recession.” She concluded her monologue with this summary: “The only thing that Donald Trump really had going for him as a candidate was that he was supposed to be a great businessman. Now we know that, not only is he a bad businessman, he is one of the worst in American history.”

Trevor Noah

Bernie Sanders had a public access TV show in the ‘80s. We sifted through the unearthed footage and hoooboy… pic.twitter.com/trO27E9pZR — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 9, 2019

The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah took a different path, electing to show unearthed footage of Bernie Sanders’ public access show, Bernie Speaks with the Community, from the 1980s. The presidential hopeful hosted the show in his time as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and the full archives of the show online were recently released online. “I’m talking hours and hours of pure Bernie-gold. Like, there’s so much gold in these archives, Bernie’s gonna demand it gets redistributed to the working class.”

Noah showed clips of the program, indicating little has changed with the Vermont senator in 30 years. In the first few clips, Sanders discusses the United States’ lack of a national health service and the unfairness of the US tax code. “Bernie Sanders – he’s never changed. And I’m not talking about his platform. The dude looked exactly the same back then as he does today,” joked the host. Pointing out Sanders was 46 years old in the video, Noah continued: “If you traveled back in time in a time machine and the first person you met was Bernie Sanders, you’d be like: ‘Ah, this piece of shit doesn’t work!’”

But even funnier than his platform and his appearance in these clips were his interactions with children, said Noah. Showing footage from a segment where Sanders asks what appears to be elementary school children if they have ever seen cocaine or smoked a cigarette, Noah focused on a child who responded with his age (five years old) as the reason he doesn’t smoke. “It’s almost like Bernie can’t tell the difference between kids and adults. He’s like ‘Let’s talk finance. You guys diversified? Who’s got a 401(k)? Who?’” said Noah, imitating the Vermont senator. Noah also showed clips of Sanders in classrooms and on the street, interviewing random children. Sanders seemed to scare them, with a few walking off. “When kids’ parents told them not to talk to strange men on the street, that is the definition of what they were’ talking about!” exclaimed Noah.