Most of the late night shows took last week off and, look, everyone needs a break. Especially when you’re a political comedian charged with making sense and light of the daily fusillade of foolishness coming from the Trump White House. After seven whole days watching the villainous buffoonery of the Trump administration sitting at home like the rest of his viewers, Meyers took to his nightly “A Closer Look” segment to run through all the comic rage he’d stored up over [checking notes]: Trump’s seemingly self-destructive rage-tweeting about his court-thwarted ”travel ban”; Trump pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement (reportedly at least partly in a fit of impotent pique over new French President Emmanuel Macron’s manlier, handsomer handshake); Trump complaining about Democratic obstruction of scores of vital governmental positions for which he hasn’t bothered to nominate anyone; and lots of apparently important golf outings.
It’s a hell of a backlog, and, as Meyers soldiered on, he repeatedly noted that, for viewers and late night hosts alike, rationing the attendant, incessant outrage can be the biggest challenge of all. Noting London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s unwillingness to respond to Trump’s inconceivably insensitive Twitter hectoring, where a spokesperson explained “We have more important things to do right now,” Meyers commiserated, in that “responding to Trump’s ill-advised tweets is a full time job.” In fact, as he noted—and the infrequent week off notwithstanding—it’s literally his full-time job.
As to Trump’s Twitter trolling (against the non-white, Muslim mayor of London, but not the white mayor of similarly attacked Manchester, oddly), Meyers, again, like most everyone else, could only marvel that Trump was just constitutionally unable to refrain from ranting about his “travel ban,” even though calling it a “travel ban” is pretty much the one thing he shouldn’t do as the repeatedly struck-down measure heads to the Supreme Court. Meyers had the receipts there, too, as he played both press secretary Sean Spicer’s assertion that the travel ban is in no way a travel ban, and spokesperson Kellyanne Conway (on Meyers’ show, no less), claiming that Trump’s constant, unfiltered tweeting is the best way to really know what the “tell it like it is” Trump really means at any given moment. Playing the clip of past Conway contradicting current Conway’s claim that the media should stop paying attention to Trump’s online ranting, Meyers deadpanned, “I really have to start watching my own show, but it’s just an hour of Trump-bashing. It gets old.”