Late-night hosts talked cratering public opinion on the Trump administration’s deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in US communities and the president’s apparent preference for whole milk.
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers opened Wednesday’s Late Night with a reminder to viewers about how Trump “sold his mass deportation program to voters during the campaign”.
That would be by declaring some version of “We are going to start with violent criminals” again and again.
“If you say you’re going to get violent criminals off the streets, of course people are going to be into that. But that was a lie,” Meyers noted. “It would have been much less popular if Trump had announced his plan was to hire an army of out-of-shape uncles to hang around Target and aggressively ask people where they were born. And that’s what’s really happening.
“Instead of deporting violent criminals like Trump promised, we just keep getting this,” he said before showing clips of ICE agents at a high school in Minnesota, where they blocked roads and shot students with pepper spray, and arresting people at Target as others bought their groceries.
“Why the hell is ICE spending time at Target?” he fumed. “What’s next? Are they going to deport the Target dog?”
The Trump administration’s rush to expand ICE has resulted in new recruits struggling to meet lowered standards, especially a basic fitness test of 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups and running 1.5 miles in 14 minutes. Some senior ICE officials have described the process as “pathetic” and “a disaster”.
“Well you know it’s bad when even your own bosses are calling you pathetic and a disaster,” said Meyers. Worse, many new recruits were also not fully vetted, and some were later discovered to have criminal backgrounds and failed drug tests. Nearly half failed the written exam, even when given access to notes and textbooks. “How the fuck do you fail an open-book test?” Meyers laughed. “Of course, these jabronis probably think the words ‘open-book test’ means that it’s a test to see if you can open a book.”
Referring to numerous polls showing widespread disapproval of ICE tactics, Meyers made his final point: “Most Americans do not want armed agents wreaking havoc in their schools, neighborhoods and grocery stores, especially when those armed agents are not even qualified for the job.”
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host touched on Trump’s bullying rhetoric on Greenland, the autonomous territory controlled by Denmark that he has suggested taking over. Leaders of Greenland, naturally, have rebuffed such rhetoric. “Trump’s not really an ask-for-consent kind of guy,” said Kimmel. “He doesn’t have to ask – when you’re a star, they just let you.”
But “of course they don’t want to be part of the United States right now!” he added. “Nobody wants to be. People from the United States don’t want to be part of the United States. It’s like being cast in a movie that already has Bill Cosby as the lead.”
Kimmel then pivoted to Trump’s Wednesday activities at the White House. “This morning, I read that Trump was holding an MLK event in the Oval Office,” he said. “It turned out it wasn’t … about MLK. It was about M-I-L-K.”
“You see that beautiful milk? That’s what we’re here for,” Trump said from his desk, before he signed a bipartisan bill allowing schools to offer whole and 2% milk to students, overturning Obama-era restrictions that limited students to fat-free or low-fat milk.
“Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whole milk is right,” said Trump. “Whole milk. It’s actually a legal definition, whole milk, and it’s whole with a ‘w’ for those of you that have a problem. That’s right. It’s not ‘hole’ milk. It’s ‘whole’ milk.”
“Does he think that we think that milk comes from a hole?” Kimmel exclaimed. “I mean, if there’s milk coming from your hole, you either need to get to a doctor or a farm and quit.”
Stephen Colbert
And on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert mocked the Trump administration’s declaration via social media post that it is “ending the war on protein”.
“Americans are finally saying merry beef-mas again!” he joked.
Colbert also touched on Trump signing a bill that allows schools to offer whole and 2% milk. “And this is great news for the many Americans who have been demanding this change,” he said. “How many? About 2%.”
As for Trump’s insistence that it was “whole milk” not “hole milk” – “yes, very important distinction”, Colbert said. “That’s whole milk, with a W, not hole milk, with an H. Trump had to make that distinction to avoid copyright infringement, because hole milk without the W pretty sure is the plot of Heated Rivalry.”
He then played a clip of an employee at a Ford factory in Michigan who called Trump a “pedophile protector” as the president toured the facility. Trump responded with his middle finger.
“You saw that right. Apparently Trump has designated a new national bird,” said Colbert. “That is the most crudely hostile response from the leader of our country.
“You gotta hand it to that autoworker for getting under Trump’s skin like compound butter on a Thanksgiving turkey,” he added. “And all because he brought up the Epstein files. Which reminds me – where are the Epstein files?!
“We were told that there would be Epstein files! In fact you signed a law mandating that you would have to release the Epstein files by the middle of last month, but you still haven’t. It kinda makes you seem like a – what’s the phrase? – pedophile protector!”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
