Extract from The Guardian
Late-night hosts recap Trump’s losses in trying to overturn the election and the $170m raised for his supposed ‘election defense fund’
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert kicked off the final month of 2020 Late Shows with confused season’s greetings: “Happy December, everybody, or very late March, it’s hard to tell at this point.” Christmas came early on 1 December, he added, “as the president continues to shower us all with the gift of watching him lose every day, sometimes several times a day.”
“The president’s chances of overturning the results were always next to zero,” Colbert continued, referring to Donald Trump’s groundless and precedent-shattering attempts to undermine and overturn the election results in several swing states. “But those chances just moved to downtown zero town” as Arizona and Wisconsin both certified Biden’s victory, meaning Trump “has failed to stop the vote certification in all six states where he contested his defeat. So that’s 0-6 in the certifications, and 0-3 in recounts, and he hasn’t won a single fraud case. He’s undefeated at losing. He is the Michael Jordan of playing baseball.”
The Trump campaign paid $3m for the recount in Wisconsin, which ultimately tacked on additional 87 votes in Biden’s favor. “Oh my God, he just keeps making it worse,” Colbert said. “He’s like a guy at a custody hearing saying, ‘Your honor, my wife has made it seem like I’m a delinquent father and a terrible gambler but how would she know any of that? I’m never around and I’m always at the casino. By the way, I’m putting $50 on her winning this case.’”
Trump’s attempts to discredit the election results have also hit a wall in Georgia, where Republicans are reportedly worried his baseless claims of fraud will suppress turnout in the two January run-off races that determine control of the US Senate. “Republicans could be destroyed by their own creation. It’s like the tale of Dr Frankenstein – they’ve already got the reanimated corpse,” Colbert joked over a picture of Mitch McConnell.
Trevor Noah
On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah assessed the nominees for the incoming Biden administration, which includes several notable firsts: a diverse, all-female communications team; Alejandro Mayorkas, who would be the first Latino and immigrant to serve as secretary of homeland security; and Avril Haines, who would be the first female director of national intelligence. The career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a black woman, was tapped to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. “Now that is progressive – an all-women communications team and national security team that is racially diverse,” Noah said. “People all over the Middle East are gonna be like: ‘What an honor, what an honor to be bombed by such a woke administration.’
“Let’s be honest, this team isn’t as diverse as it seems on the surface,” he continued. “All of these people have experience in their fields. The Trump administration would never have tolerated this kind of discrimination against incompetence.”
Meanwhile, “on the other side of reality”, Trump’s baseless bid to overturn the election results has racked up considerable cash for his so-called “election defense fund” – $170m raised since the election, according to CNN, that will mostly go towards the president’s personal expenses and campaign debt. “Even at the end of his presidency, Donald Trump is grifting his supporters out of their money,” Noah said. “I guess the one thing he doesn’t need to recount is his balls, because clearly this man has a massive pair to go out like this.
“I mean, we all knew that he’d probably grift hard on his way out, but hustling $170m from his own supporters? Phew, it’s one thing to steal all the shampoo bottles from the hotel, but Trump? He’s taking the piano from the lobby and the indoor pool with them.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel also roasted Trump’s “election defense fund” on Tuesday night, as “Uncle Scam has been raking it in” with $170m raised since the election. “For what? I don’t know,” he said. “He knows the results are not going to be overturned, but I guess he saw an opportunity to make money. It’s like setting up your bake sale outside a Curves.”
Still, “the future is not rosy for the president”, as his attorney general, Bill Barr, publicly countered the president’s false narrative of election fraud in an interview with the Associated Press: “We have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” said Barr.
“If Bill Barr had a neck, Trump would totally be wringing it right now,” Kimmel joked, since Barr has been “one of Trump’s most obnoxiously loyal allies, emphasis on ‘lies’ in allies. This would be like if Thelma turned on Louise.”
Though Trump has continued to spew baseless claims of fraud on Twitter, according to CNN, sources claim Trump “sees the writing on the wall”.
“I’m glad he finally sees the writing,” said Kimmel. “I guess once he lost Wisconsin five times in 10 days, he realized the end might be near.”
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