Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers opened with the escalation of threats from Vladimir Putin after a series of setbacks in his invasion of Ukraine. Putin vowed that Russia will use “all means” at its disposal to continue the occupation of Ukraine, adding: “I am not bluffing.”
“OK, the problem with Putin is, even if he was bluffing, it would be impossible to tell,” said Meyers on Monday’s Late Night. “The guy is a former KGB agent and he is addicted to Botox. His expression never changes. It doesn’t matter if he’s losing a war or riding a rollercoaster.”
In a rally over the weekend, Donald Trump referenced Putin’s heated rhetoric, referring to “nuclear” as “the N-word”.
“Now, I have to imagine there was some percentage of that crowd, however large or small, that heard that sentence and thought to themselves, ‘Oh my God, it’s finally happening,’” said Meyers.
Trump also warned that “you could end up in world war III and this could be a war like we’ve never had before, or even be close because we’re being run by stupid people.”
“Yeah, you know, stupid people, like the kinds of people who refer to the word ‘nuclear’ as ‘the N-word’,” Meyers retorted. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you shorten a word no one shortens like that?”
Stephen Colbert
On the Late Show, Stephen Colbert noted a significant space event: a Nasa spacecraft deliberately hit an asteroid head-on at 15,000mph to see whether space rocks can be deflected away from earth. “Now, before you start having panic sex with strangers on the sidewalk, I hope it’s not because of this asteroid,” he said. “It wasn’t the big civilization ender that Ben Affleck will have to save us from. It wasn’t even headed to earth.”
The mission – the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or Dart – was to test if Nasa could push a potentially dangerous asteroid off a collision course with Earth. “Not to be confused with the mission to stop a real asteroid that’s going to destroy the planet, the ‘Spatial Hybrid Astronaut Redirection Technique’, or ‘Shart’,” Colbert joked.
He then pivoted to more details from New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s new book on Trump. In Confidence Man, the former president sat for several interviews to set the record straight on January 6 … by telling Haberman that he wasn’t watching television during the Capitol attack.
“Really?” Colbert exclaimed. “You’re accused an angry mob to storm the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transition of power for the first time in our nation’s history, and that’s the part of the testimony you’re taking issue with?”
Trevor Noah
Lying at a dinner party is one thing, lying to win an election? Not cool. pic.twitter.com/OFreusC4s9
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) September 27, 2022
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah looked into the case of JR Majewski, a GOP House candidate from north-west Ohio who appears to have lied about his military service. Majewski touted his combat experience in Afghanistan following 9/11, but military records show he served away from combat in Qatar. Majewski has denied misrepresenting his time in service, and claimed that all of his records of deployment are classified.
“Yeah, that’s right people, he cannot prove that he was in combat because all of the records are classified. And I believe him. Man, I’ve been there,” Noah deadpanned. “When I was in middle school, my girlfriend was classified too, and it sucked. She was so hot, guys, I wish you could’ve seen her, but she was so classified.”
“For real – if you weren’t in active combat, you can’t just say you were in active combat, especially to get elected,” Noah added. “At a dinner party, I get it – ‘I killed Bin Laden, oooh.’ But lying about active combat isn’t just disrespectful to all the troops who are actually in active combat, it’s also extremely misleading to the voters.
“If you’re going to say you’re doing top-secret combat in Afghanistan and you can’t show it to us, you should at least have to prove it,” he continued. “You should have to do some Seal Team Six shit in front of us. Yeah, like the guy standing next to you – snap his neck on stage. And then I’ll believe you.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And Jimmy Kimmel returned to New York for the first time since 2019 for a week of shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His show transported all 270 members of their staff to New York for the week, “so if you notice people waiting for the lights to turn green before crossing the street, they’re probably with us”, Kimmel joked.
He touched on an announcement from the governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, to put surveillance cameras in every New York subway car. “The plan is to have cameras in every train – basically the subway is starting an OnlyFans account,” Kimmel explained. “Which, I don’t know. This is either going to discourage public masturbators or really excite them.
“How are there not already cameras? There are cameras in every aisle at Duane Reade. “I find it hard to even steal lipstick any more.”
The cameras won’t be installed until 2025, “so if you were planning to commit a crime on the subway, there’s no rush”, said Kimmel. “You’ve got plenty of time.”