Late-night hosts say goodbye to President Trump: ‘The end of an error’
Late-night hosts have spent four years mocking, joking and being horrified about President Donald Trump. And on Tuesday night, they said their goodbyes.
“It’s the day before the day that we’ve been waiting for,” Stephen Colbert said in opening Tuesday’s “Late Show.” “Tonight is the last show we’ll do during the presidency of ‘He Who Shall Remain Shameless.'”
Colbert then played a clip from his first show following Trump’s inauguration four years ago, when the host said the next few years should be “very interesting.”
“I might have undersold that just a smidge,” Colbert said Tuesday night. “It has been interesting in the same way that riding in a car going over a cliff is thought-provoking.”
The host also noted the show has been literally counting down the days until Trump would leave office, projecting the number on the ceiling of the Ed Sullivan Theater.
“Tonight the number on the dome has counted down to ‘1’,” he said before playing “Hit the Road, Jack” by Ray Charles.
Over on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Kimmel said it was “the end of an error.”
“I have to say, I’m not sure what to feel right now,” Kimmel said. “It feels like the night before my wedding and my divorce. All rolled up into one.”
If he had to grade Trump’s presidency, Kimmel said, “it would be an “F+.”
“Hopefully, tomorrow at noon he will board a Space Force craft and rocket to Mars, never to be seen or heard from again,” he added. “Trump leaves office with a grade point average of F+, and a string of lies that will never be broken.”
NBC’s Seth Meyers spent nearly 20 minutes talking about the four years of Trump during his “Closer Look” segment on “Late Night.”
“Trump will go down in history as a disgraced, sadistic con artist who left the nation in ruins,” Meyers said. “He’s less popular than Bush, he’s broken more laws than Nixon, he’s got a worse jobs record than Hoover and he leans like a house blown over in a storm that Jimmy Carter would have to fix.”
Trevor Noah of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” said he hopes Trump “fades away like one of his tans.”
“I know he’ll never fully be gone. He’s basically the Covid of politics. America is going to be experiencing side effects long after he’s out of the system,” Noah said. “But I do hope that with him at least not being president, we can all get back to being a bit more honest with each other and more nuanced in talking about what divides us.”
