Comedians cry as Trump has the last laugh – Times of India

TOI correspondent from Washington: Late night comedians are crying foul as Donald Trump had the last laugh in the 2024 US Presidential elections.
The crew of some half dozen satirists on the mostly liberal tv networks vented against Trump after his stunning win on Tuesday, some of them tearing up and catching sobs.
“It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him, and guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too. You just don’t realize it yet,” Jimmy Kimmel, who Trump has frequently tangled with, began somberly in a sketch on ABC that showed him packing up to leave the country.
“It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard working immigrants who make this country great, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech,” he continued gravely, adding, “It was a really good night for Putin and for polio and for lovable billionaires like Elon Musk, and the bros up in Silicon Valley, and all the wriggling brain worms who sold what was left of their souls to bow down to Donald Trump.”
Stephen Colbert, his peer on Comedy Central, was as gutted, starting his monologue with a profanity, saying, “Well, f***. It happened again. After a bizarre and vicious campaign fueled by a desperate need to not go to jail, Donald Trump has won the 2024 election.”
“All day yesterday, I was walking around proudly wearing my ‘I voted’ sticker. Today, I wore my ‘I am questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity’ sticker,” he added.
Colbert said as a late-night host, people often say part of him has got to want Trump to win because he gives you so much material to work with. “No, no. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, ‘Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea — there’s so much material for you to work with!'” he joked.
He called Trump “a monstrous child surrounded by cowards and grifters” and took a swipe at Trump voters, saying, “in this democracy the majority have spoken and said that they don’t care about democracy.”
NBC’s Jimmy Fallon jibed that America has “got back together with its crazy ex” a theme that was also expressed by the Daily Show’s Desi Lydic who lamented that “instead of breaking the glass ceiling, last night America decided to get back with her dirtbag ex.”
Lydic also expressed the female perspective of what liberals see as a fiasco, joking, “Yep, it’s official. America elected its first criminal president before electing its first female president. What a day for proud felonists.”
“We’ve had two qualified, accomplished women nominated for president, and both times they lost to the worst man in the whole country,” she added.
“Trump returning to the White House is a huge historic comeback for someone who literally never went away,” Fallon joked, adding, “Trump could be the first president to be under White House arrest.”
And from Kimmel: “Donald Trump is like the emperor from ‘Star Wars.’ He’s old, he’s evil and he keeps coming back with no reasonable explanation whatsoever.”
Late night comedians, and indeed the mainstream liberal-leaning US media, has been largely anti-Trump, irking the former president, who has tried to promote pro-MAGA comedians.
“Nancy Pelosi was so enraged by Trump’s victory, her eyebrows moved to Canada,” joked Greg Gutfield, a new Trump favorite. “He (Trump) won the popular vote by over 5 million. That can’t be explained away. The Dems can’t give their usual excuses, with more ‘but, but, buts’ than a Kardashian family reunion.” he added.
Trump has frequently voiced resentment about jokes aimed at him, and according to one account, wondering with aides whether satire can be punished. He has had a particularly contentious relationship with Jimmy Kimmel, calling him “mediocre” and a “loser.”
Kimmel in turn has taunted him possible prison time, in one instance reading out a message Trump sent him when he was hosting the Academy Awards, and joking, “Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. I’m surprised you’re still up…Isn’t it past your jail time?”
More recently, Kimmel joked about Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s, jibing, “This is a win-win for Trump…Because working a deep-fryer will give him a new skill he could potentially put to use in the prison cafeteria.”
On Wednesday, he was more circumspect, joking, “My only request to President-elect Trump is that he let me share a prison cell with Taylor Swift.”