Over the course of his 10-minute “A Closer Look” segment Wednesday night, Seth Meyers set out to prove why President Donald Trump’s constant lying is so pernicious.
“Trump’s only political skill is his total and complete lack of shame,” the Late Night host began. “His malignant narcissism allows him to confidently and brazenly lie in the way that most other politicians would be too embarrassed to even try.”
Sometimes, these blatant lies are relatively victimless. But that is not the case this week as Trump attempts to take credit for ending a “cruel” policy of separating immigrant families at the border that he himself implemented.
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“Let’s be clear about one thing,” Meyers said. “You don’t get credit for solving a problem when you yourself created the problem. You can’t eat half a cheeseburger, put it down and say you’re a vegan—especially when everyone knows you’re just waiting for people to stop paying attention so you can finish your cheeseburger.”
“Whether it’s the birther lie or the ‘Mexicans are rapists’ lie or the idea that Democrats are responsible for separating families, Trump’s paranoid fantasies are a Rosetta Stone for understanding what’s happening right now,” he added.
For instance, Meyers said, Fox News has been “trying to make you believe that what you’re seeing with your own eyes isn’t real,” whether it’s Laura Ingraham saying the children are being held in “essentially summer camps” or Ann Coulter calling the kids screaming for their parents “child actors.”
“If you rip a child away from its parents and you put that child in a suite at the Ritz, you’re still a fucking monster,” Meyers said.
And then there is Corey Lewandowski, who uttered “womp, womp” when faced with the horrific story about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome separated from her parents. “Man, I thought when you showed a dick on TV you had to blur it,” Meyers joked.
The host ended his segment by talking about a sentiment that has been expressed all over social media by Trump’s critics in recent days: “This is not who we are.”
“But it is who we are right now,” he said. “You personally might not be this, but who we are is too often decided by those in power, which is why you vote. So remember, if you want who we are to match with who you are, you have to get up early and vote next chance you have.”
Meyers typically ends these pieces with a joke. Not tonight.
