Late-night hosts on Trump: 'How to Lose Friends and Influence No One'

Extract from The Guardian

Comics, including Jimmy Fallon and Trevor Noah, discussed the collapse of the healthcare reform bill and the president’s inability to accept responsibility

Jimmy Fallon: upcoming Trump book titles include To Kill a Healthcare Bill. Photograph: YouTube

Guardian staff

Wednesday 29 March 2017 02.13 AEDT 

Late-night hosts discussed the embarrassing collapse of the proposed healthcare reform and Trump’s ongoing difficulty with accepting blame.

On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah spoke about the president’s attempts to shift the attention and responsibility on to others rather than “the carrot cake commander himself”.
He played footage of Trump’a apparent surprise that the opposing party wouldn’t help to pass the bill. “He’s legitimately mad that the Democrats wouldn’t vote to repeal Obama’s healthcare bill,” he said.
Noah then brought up Trump’s tweet urging his followers to watch Fox News show Judge Jeanine which was focused on Paul Ryan’s failings. “Wow, that Fox News shit was insane,” he said. “No, in fact it sounded just like North Korea’s propaganda news.”
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also spoke about the failed bill, referring to Steve Bannon as “White House adviser and pre-existing condition”.

Colbert said the bill would be placed “in the cabinet of broken Republican dreams next to trickle-down economics and a Jesus-shaped fighter jet that drops gay people on Isis.”
He also replayed the interview with Trump where he complained about a lack of support from the Democrats. “Not enough votes to get a majority?” he said. “Well that didn’t stop you from becoming president.”
Trump has since claimed that he never said he would repeal and replace Obamacare within his first 64 days as president but Colbert assembled a montage of pre-election rallies where Trump claimed it would be done immediately. “So I guess technically he did not fail on Friday, he failed two months ago,” he said.

He continued: “It’s almost like you can’t trust a fast-talking city slicker who rolls into town promising a magic solution for all our medical needs. I’m starting to doubt the effectiveness of Dr Bannon’s anti-Muslim toad oil.”
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host also ridiculed Trump now claiming that he didn’t say he would fix healthcare in his first two months. “That’s right, Trump never said 64 days,” he said. “He said one day.”

He was also astonished at Trump’s suggestion that people watch Judge Jeanine’s takedown of Ryan. “Not only is she saying what Trump wants to hear, she’s saying it in the way Trump wants to hear it: slow and with a thick New York accent,” he said.
The day after, Trump’s surrogates were forced to defend the tweet, claiming that he was a fan of her show and was merely showing his support. “Trump’s team is now defending him by saying he likes to watch TV shows,” he said.

On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon brought up the investigation surrounding Jared Kushner’s ties to Russia. “If they find out he did anything illegal, he’ll be sentenced to still being Trump’s son-in-law,” he said.
He then spoke of a rumor that Paul Ryan got down on one knee to beg one member of the Republican party to vote yes to the new healthcare bill. “You think that’s bad?” he said. “He showed up at another guy’s window with a boom box.”
Fallon then listed new book titles set to come from Trump: How to Lose Friends and Influence No One, The Giving Up Tree, To Kill a Healthcare Bill and Oh the Places You’ll Golf.