It’s Presidents Day and Seth Meyers doesn’t seem to know where to start with President Trump.
“On the one hand, you’ve got the genuinely ominous things he’s done, from declaring the free press an ‘enemy of the American people’ to preemptively blaming a judge for future terror attacks,” the Late Night host said Monday night. And then, he added, there’s the “everyday weirdness” of a story like Chris Christie’s meatloaf-fueled visit to the White House last week.
“Of course, the meatloaf was actually a second course for Christie after Trump made him swallow his pride,” Meyers joked.
The more substantive “dysfunction” in Trump’s administration, Meyers went on to say, “seems to be scaring some people off from working in the White House.” For instance, there was retired Admiral Robert Harward, who turned down the chance to succeed Michael Flynn as national security adviser, reportedly calling the role a “shit sandwich.”
“We have shit sandwiches?” Meyers imagined Trump asking. “Then why did we let Chris Christie have meatloaf?”
Then there was Trump’s post-press conference tweet on Friday calling the media the “enemy of the American people,” which Meyers called “something you expect to hear from an authoritarian ruler.” But “even when Trump wants to come off as an authoritarian strongman, it turns out he’s still a buffoon.” Before he posted that message, he tweeted and deleted a first draft and left off ABC and CBS News.
“When you have to double-clutch on your authoritarian declarations, you sound less like a terrifying dictator and more like the guy at the bonfire who can almost play guitar,” Meyers said.
Finally, Meyers turned to the campaign rally in Florida in which Trump invented a terror attack in Sweden out of whole cloth. “Trump literally saw something on Fox News and confused it for reality,” he said. “Next thing you know he’s going to lament the terrible treatment of people with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.”
“Between Trump’s press conference and his event in Florida, Trump has made a series of wild and unhinged appearances over the last few days,” Meyers added. “But there has been one common theme.”
Showing clips of Trump asking for questions from a “friendly reporter” and telling rally attendees he wants to be “among friends,” Meyers said, “The president of the United States just wants a friend. You know someone he can force to eat meatloaf.”