Late-night hosts: 'Responding to Trump’s ill-informed tweets can be a full-time job'

Extract from The Guardian

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Late-night TV roundup

Comics, including Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers, took aim at the president for his tweets about the London attack and his travel ban

‘Trump has spent the last few days doing as much damage as possible to our relationship with allies’ ... Seth Meyers. Photograph: YouTube

Jake Nevins

Wednesday 7 June 2017 01.51 AEST Last modified on Wednesday 7 June 2017 04.25 AEST

Late-night hosts addressed the latest news out of the White House, including Donald Trump’s escalating feud with London’s mayor Sadiq Khan and his tweets about his administration’s travel ban.

“This weekend, seven people were killed and 50 others were injured in a terrorist attack that took place in London,” said Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. “Now, most leaders sent their condolences. Donald Trump, however, threw shade.
“He’s really, really, something else,” Noah continued, referencing the president’s tweets about Khan, sent out shortly after news broke of the attacks, in which he took the mayor’s statements out of context. “I mean, just after an attack in London, he shits on the mayor of London. He would be the worst person to visit you in the hospital. You’re suffering and Donald Trump is shitting on you.

“Donald, this accident left me totally blind,” Noah said, before impersonating the president: “At least you won’t see your wife ever again. She’s a 2 at best.”

Stephen Colbert, returning to The Late Show after a brief sabbatical, also addressed Trump’s Twitter habits, including his referring to his executive order on immigration as a “travel ban”, which could hinder its ability to pass constitutional muster.

“Trump is still trying to push his Muslim travel ban,” Colbert began. “Remember he had that executive order he signed, showed everybody, and that was struck down in court, and then that was rewritten to be a little softer, and then it was struck down again? Well, now a revised version is heading to the supreme court, and the administration’s only chance of winning is not calling it a travel ban.”
Colbert then showed a clip of Sean Spicer calling the moniker “travel ban” a “misrepresentation”, although the president has referred to it as such in five separate tweets since Saturday.

“Mr President,” Colbert said. “That was the one thing you’re not supposed to say. That’s like going to an AA meeting and shouting: ‘Who wants shots?’ They all do, that’s why they’re there.”
Seth Meyers also poked fun at the travel ban tweets, suggesting Trump would “be a nightmare to play Taboo with”. He went on: “Trump, as usual, put his foot in his mouth. Now, remember his administration has spent months trying to argue that the ban is legal because it’s actually not a ban? So all Trump has to do to avoid hurting his own cause is not use the word ban. That’s it. Just don’t say ban.”

Meyers also had some choice words for the president’s treatment of Khan, who declined to respond to the tweets, releasing a statement through his spokesperson, who said there were “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks”.

“Trump has spent the last few days doing as much damage as possible to our relationship with allies and our images across the world, beginning with his response to the horrific attacks on Saturday in London,” Meyers said. “And it’s true: responding to Trump’s ill-informed tweets can be a full time job. And I know, because it’s my full-time job, and I can’t even get to all of it.”