Seth Meyers on Trump’s State of the Union address: ‘A vehicle to attack anyone who doesn’t bend the knee’
Late-night hosts tore into Donald Trump’s extremely long State of the Union address and a bombshell new report on redactions from the Jeffrey Epstein files.Donald Trump arrived to his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening with low expectations and even lower goodwill, with his approval rating hovering somewhere around a dismal 36%.“So the polling was bad before the speech and bad after the speech,” Seth Meyers reported on Wednesday evening, “and on top of that it was long and boring,” clocking in at a record one hour and 47 minutes.Or, if you’re Republican, it was “the best State of the Union speech that I’ve seen”, to quote the House speaker, Mike Johnson.Ted Cruz went one step further, calling it “majestic”.
And according to one Fox News commentator: “Any historian who’s writing about this presidency has to watch this speech tonight and read it carefully,”“Historians have to read it carefully? Trump didn’t read it carefully!” the Late Night responded before footage of Trump stumbling over nonsensical sentences,“And yet despite the fact that it strained everyone’s attention spans, Trump expected everyone to leap to their feet and applaud for him, including the Democrats, and his feelings were very hurt when they didn’t,” he continued,When Democrats refused to applaud, Trump lashed out – “These people are crazy,” he said menacingly,“Trump is so desperate for a win, he tried to co-opt the US men’s hockey team’s Olympic gold medal like he had something to do with it,” Meyers added before a clip of Trump bragging: “Our country is winning again, and in fact we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.
”“Hey man, you’re not winning,” Meyers corrected.“They’re winning.You didn’t win jack shit.“Trump used his speech the way he uses all of his speeches: as a vehicle to attack anyone who doesn’t bend the knee,” he concluded.“And since that’s a majority of the country, his poll numbers are terrible.
”“We’re still all recovering from the president’s bramble ramble brain jamble,” said Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s Late Show,“But the reviews are in, and they are bad,” The New York Times called it a “tedious, tiresome performance”, while the Atlantic declared that “the State of the Union revealed a sad reality”,Colbert, for what it’s worth, found the speech “boring and disturbing”, both for what was said and for what was not,“One thing Trump did not mention in his two-hour, hockey-humping, immigrant grumbling jambaroo was anything about the Epstein files,” Colbert noted.
“Now, it is well known that big, incriminating stuff has been redacted from what Pam Bondi released,” including 50 pages of material related to Trump.“And it’s totally on-brand for the DoJ – this DoJ especially – to be protecting Trump.It’s the least surprising headline since ‘Youngest child becomes theater major’.”“Now, we don’t know exactly what’s in there or if it’s true, and whatever it is, Trump denies any wrongdoing,” he continued.“But it is weird that these files specifically are missing, because the law prohibits redacting on the basis of embarrassment or reputational harm.
” And according to the New York Times, the missing files include FBI memos summarizing interviews conducted by the bureau with a woman who alleged in 2019 that she had been sexually assaulted by Trump and Epstein when she was 13 to 15 years old.“Holy unholy.This would be the worst scandal in presidential history,” Colbert marveled.“That the files are missing should be the biggest story in the world, but we’re all so exhausted and worn down by this turd of a time that when a bombshell like this comes along, we go, ‘Oh, that’s terrible … I wonder if that baby monkey made friends yet.’”In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel continued to trace the fallout from Trump’s State of the Union address.
“Basically Trump’s message to America, if you didn’t see it last night, was if you’re struggling financially or trying to support your family by putting food on the table, if you’re having a hard time, you’re wrong.You’re actually very rich, and let’s stop talking about it.“Four days after the supreme court torched his tariffs – the centerpiece of his cockamamie foreign policy – he said we are winning so much, we don’t know what to do with it,” he added.“This is what happens to old people who only watch Fox News: they become confused about reality.“The fact that he’s 79 years old and spoke uninterrupted for almost two hours – it’s the only proof I’ll ever need that he wears a diaper,” he quipped.
“He’s definitely wearing a diaper,He might be wearing two diapers,”Later in his monologue, Kimmel also touched on the bombshell New York Times story on redactions from the Epstein files including FBI interviews with a woman who alleged that Trump and Epstein sexually assaulted her when she was a young teenager,Robert Garcia, a House Democrat on the oversight committee, confirmed in a statement that the justice department “appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes”,“Hey Pam Bondi, cancel your blowout! We’ve got heinous crimes to investigate here,” Kimmel said with disgust.
“Why are they being allowed to hide this stuff? You’re supposed to release the files! What a bunch of hypocrites.If these interviews were on Hunter Biden’s laptop, we’d know every word of them.”And on The Daily Show, Desi Lydic examined the gory rhetoric of Trump’s speech, in which he bragged about the US military shooting targets in the head and streaking halls with blood.“Look, there’s nothing wrong with honoring Americans who have been through tragedies, but we used to have American presidents who could do that without sounding like a six-year-old dismembering his GI Joes,” she said.But the speech “wasn’t just two hours of Donald Trump traumatizing America”, she added.
“One reason that the speech went so long is because Republicans kept interrupting for applause breaks, which Trump would just bask in, rotating back and forth like he was stuck on oscillating-fan mode.“But the Democrats stayed seated almost the entire night, and you could tell it started to get under Trump’s skin.”Faced with a disapproving audience, Trump lashed out.“How do you not stand?” he shouted.“You should be ashamed of yourselves!”“Mr President, I will have you know that the Democrats are not standing because they are outraged by your tyranny and lawless behavior … and also they’re asleep right now,” Lydic joked before clips of Democratic lawmakers who apparently dozed off during the speech.
Seth Meyers on Team Trump’s Iran threats: ‘These guys speak like they’ve been hit on the head’
On Thursday night, late-night hosts remarked on the Jeffrey Epstein investigations, the threat of a US attack on Iran and Donald Trump nominating a wellness influencer as the next US surgeon general.Meyers focused on the president’s criticisms of a landmark 2015 deal between Iran and world powers in which the country agreed to curb their nuclear program. “I’ve been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals,” Trump said. “That’s what I do. Never in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran
How to keep free entry to UK museums and galleries | Letters
I believe that national museums should be free for all. Your report (Is the UK’s golden era of free museum entry coming to an end?, 21 February) quoted me from a Daily Telegraph article that selectively used parts of a much longer interview. I said in principle that people would be willing to pay; however, I then outlined all the reasons this would not work financially, practically and ethically. I do not wish to be represented as a mouthpiece for those who wish to introduce charges.Nick MerrimanHastingleigh, Kent There is an easy answer to the budget difficulties faced by many UK art galleries and museums: identity cards
‘You’re sweet – and I’m old!’: Billy Porter and Sam Morrison on teaming up for a comedy about love and death
The Emmy-winning singer and actor was so struck by the standup’s autobiographical one-man show Sugar Daddy that he signed on as producer. The pair discuss ‘bears’, blood sugar and bridging the divides between generations of gay menSugar Daddy is a one-man show about “love, grief and insulin” by the 31-year-old standup Sam Morrison. An autobiographical monologue that turns tragedy into comedy, it tells of how Morrison fell in love with Jonathan, who was 24 years his senior, after meeting him at a gay bear festival in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2021, two and a half years into their relationship, Jonathan died from Covid.For the last four years, Morrison has been performing Sugar Daddy around the world; next month he brings an updated version to London’s West End
‘Seems I’m not dead’: Magda Szubanski says she is in remission after treatment for stage four cancer
Magda Szubanski has revealed the “fantastic news” she has finished chemotherapy and is in remission from a rare, aggressive cancer she was diagnosed with nine months ago.Wishing her fans a “Happy Mardi Gras” in a video on Instagram on Friday, Szubanski said: “I wanted to share the fantastic news, which is that I’ve completed chemo, and I am now in remission. So phew, big relief.“It’s not a cure, but because I’ve got a good remission, that hopefully means that I will … keep the cancer at bay for a good long time.”In May the 64-year-old actor and comedian said she had stage four mantle cell lymphoma, an uncommon and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and said she had shaved her head ahead of treatment
Seth Meyers on Trump’s State of the Union address: ‘A vehicle to attack anyone who doesn’t bend the knee’
Late-night hosts tore into Donald Trump’s extremely long State of the Union address and a bombshell new report on redactions from the Jeffrey Epstein files.Donald Trump arrived to his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening with low expectations and even lower goodwill, with his approval rating hovering somewhere around a dismal 36%. “So the polling was bad before the speech and bad after the speech,” Seth Meyers reported on Wednesday evening, “and on top of that it was long and boring,” clocking in at a record one hour and 47 minutes.Or, if you’re Republican, it was “the best State of the Union speech that I’ve seen”, to quote the House speaker, Mike Johnson. Ted Cruz went one step further, calling it “majestic”
‘The sky’s the limit’: Newcastle Art Gallery unveils its ‘divisive’ $48m expansion with a blockbuster opening show
On Friday night, the Newcastle Art Gallery (NAG) is throwing open its doors and filling the road and park with giant fluffy doughnuts, live music, dancing and art in a free-for-all street party – themed “industrial disco” – that has been 16 years in the making.For the NAG team, and Novocastrians more broadly, this is a significant moment, marking the long-awaited completion of the $48m gallery expansion project, which went from being “very divisive” in the community to something that’s generating “a remarkable buzz and excitement,” according to Jeremy Bath, the CEO of Newcastle city council.Now the largest public gallery in NSW outside of Sydney, it opens with the major exhibition Iconic Loved Unexpected, displaying 500 artworks from its 7,000-strong collection. Displayed over the 13 gallery spaces (eight of which are new, in a floor space that’s more than double that of the 1997 building), it’s a star-studded showcase of the gallery’s $145m collection, including Australian greats Emily Kam Kngwarray, John Olsen, Margaret Preston, Brett Whiteley, Daniel Boyd and Margaret Olley.It’s the headliners who will draw the crowds, but the gallery – led by the NAG director, Lauretta Morton – has been intentional in championing lesser-known local artists, too
Dissatisfaction with life in UK unchanged since Covid, official data shows
Netflix quits Warner Bros takeover battle; FTSE 100 ends week at record high – as it happened
BA owner’s profits rise by 20% despite drop in passenger numbers last year
Sainsbury’s to cut 300 jobs as it restructures tech team and Argos deliveries
Trump says affordability crisis is over. Voters and data disagree
Hornby sells slot car racing brand Scalextric for £20m