Television & radio

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers on Trump’s garbage truck stunt: ‘I think you should stay there’

      by

      Late-night hosts talk Donald Trump dressing up as a garbageman as a late campaign stunt and Kamala Harris’s lead among suburban women.Seth Meyers“All politicians pander,” said Seth Meyers on Thursday’s Late Night, “but Donald Trump is the most shameless and prolific panderer in American history”. And “one of Trump’s favorite pandering tactics is playing dress-up”.On Wednesday, the former US president donned his “latest and perhaps most insane outfit yet” at a campaign stop in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Wearing a reflective orange vest, Trump climbed into a garbage truck emblazoned with his name and asked reporters: “What do you think of my garbage truck?”“You want to know what I really think of your garbage truck? I think it’s awesome and I think you should stay there,” Meyers replied. “I think you should drop out of the race and host a reality show where you try out different jobs while wearing exactly one piece of that job’s uniform.”Trump continued to wear the vest at a rally after the garbage truck stunt, designed to distract from the backlash to racist comments about Puerto Rico at his rally over the weekend. At his rally, he danced to his trademark campaign song, the Village People’s YMCA. “How is this real life?” Meyers wondered. “He doesn’t look like he’s running for president. He looks like he’s at a Halloween party at an assisted living facility.”In truth, “Trump could never make it as a sanitation worker,” Meyers added. “It’s a tough job with actual stakes and genuine responsibility, and no amount of cosplaying can make up for the fact that he’d be really bad at it. He wouldn’t last a day.”The stunt underscored the “central lie” of Trump’s political career: “that he’s a populist, an everyman, a champion of the working class. It’s a fraud.” Meyers reminded that Trump has cozied up to the world’s richest people, promised deregulation to please billionaires like Elon Musk, promised a tax cut for the wealthy and said he would not continue overtime pay. During his presidency, corporate profits soared while manufacturing jobs declined.“This is the one discernible throughline of Trump’s presidency in his three campaigns: billionaires will flourish, while regular people will suffer,” said Meyers.Stephen ColbertOn the Late Show, Stephen Colbert mocked Trump’s stumbling ascent into the garbage truck. “Looks like Trump is taking walking lessons from Rudy Giuliani,” he quipped.Trump tried to give a press conference from the truck, which devolved into rambling that ended with “I hope you enjoyed this garbage truck.”“That’s an inspiring closing message,” Colbert deadpanned, before imitating the former president. “I hope you enjoyed this garbage truck, by which I mean, this campaign. It has been a true honor and a bone-chilling dumpster fire.”At his rally, Trump mused about how he was advised not to say he wants to “protect women” by allowing Roe v Wade to be overturned. “I said, well, I’m gonna go do it whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them,” he said.“Now, I know that seems weird and creepy there, but I promise you, it sounded much sweeter in his wedding vows,” Colbert quipped.The host also noted that over 60 million people have already voted, with a 10-point gender gap in early turnout. The polls show that Harris has a 19-point lead among suburban women. “That’s right, Harris is almost as popular among suburban women as cocktail napkins that say ‘Wine do you mean we’re out of wine?!’” he joked.The gender gap has led to a rise in online queries such as: “Can my husband find out who I voted for?”“No, he can’t,” said Colbert. “But if that’s really a concern, the two of you should just sit down, and while he’s watching TV maybe look up your old college boyfriend on Facebook.”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also relished Trump’s brand-emblazoned garbage truck “because he is a ridiculous person”.Nevertheless, Trump’s cronies, such as Sean Hannity, tried to spin the photo op as a triumph. “The dumber Trump gets, the deeper Sean digs to spin stupid into smart,” said Kimmel.The Fox News host tried to claim the photo op was an “iconic, epic moment that we will remember for a long time”.“Washington crossed the Delaware, Trump hitched a ride on a garbage Trump,” Kimmel quipped. “The garbage drove the truck.”Kimmel also noted the absurdity of Trump’s subsequent rally with the reflective vest still on. “If there is a single image that we will look back on and think ‘this defines what America was going through in 2024’ I think it will be the Republican nominee for president dancing to the song YMCA in a garbageman costume,” he said.“That vest will come in handy when he’s on the side of the road picking up trash with the other inmates.” More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers on ex-president’s alleged admiration of Nazi generals: ‘Trump is a fascist’

      by

      Late-night hosts talk the former White House chief of staff John Kelly calling Donald Trump a fascist and Tucker Carlson’s bizarre rant about spanking on the campaign trail.Seth MeyersSeth Meyers devoted his Thursday Closer Look segment to the bombshell political story of the week: a New York Times interview with John Kelly, in which the former White House chief of staff said Donald Trump expressed admiration for Hitler and his generals. “I’m not sure we as a society have fully absorbed the magnitude of this story, given the way the media has been covering it,” the Late Night host said before a clip of CNN following up the story with a report on Eminem campaigning for Kamala Harris.“You can’t follow up a story as insane as ‘presidential candidate praises Hitler’ with fun wordplay about Eminem,” said Meyers. “If the first story is the next president could be a Hitler-lover, then just don’t have a second story. That’s enough to fill an hour.”“I get it can be tough to figure out how to cover something like this, because like all Trump revelations it’s both shocking and not at all surprising,” he added. “So we’re left in this weird middle ground where you’re reporting something that everyone basically knows already, but it’s also still insane. It’s like going through a haunted house with a group of friends that used to work there.”Naturally, Republicans are scrambling to normalize the situation. Meyers played a clip of the New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu, who said on CNN: “Look, we’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump from Donald Trump. It’s kinda par for the course. It’s really, unfortunately, with a guy like that, it’s really baked into the vote.”“His love of Adolf Hitler is baked in?” Meyers marveled. “That’s like saying, ‘Look, that dead rat is baked into this loaf of sourdough. What are you going to do, go all the way back to the bakery?’ If it’s baked in, then don’t eat the thing it’s baked into!“This is not a complicated story,” he concluded. “Trump is a fascist who likes other fascists and wants to emulate fascism. If you’re shrugging that off as baked in, then you’re just saying that you’re OK with fascism. If you’re still supporting Trump, just admit that you think fascism is cool.”Stephen ColbertOn the Late Show, Stephen Colbert noted that Trump will hold a rally at Madison Square Garden this weekend. “Just what New Yorkers need – more garbage around Penn Station,” he joked.The rally is “confusing”, as “New York is not what you call a swing state,” he said. Trump trails Kamala Harris by 19 points in the state – “or as the New York Jets say, not bad!” Colbert quipped.Given the interview with Kelly this week, in 10 days, “we all get to find out whether we live in a fascist country”, said Colbert. “I’m not saying that’s a good feeling, but definitely the feeling. And if you’re feeling the same way, you’re not alone.”Colbert played a clip from CNN’s presidential town hall in which Anderson Cooper asked Harris whether she thought Trump was a fascist; she replied: “Yes, I do.”Meanwhile, Trump was joined on the campaign trail by the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who made his case for the former president with a bizarre rant about spanking. “Dad comes home. He’s pissed. Dad is pissed. And when dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now,’” he told the crowd.“I just can’t figure out why they’re having trouble appealing to female voters,” Colbert deadpanned. “Not to fact-check you there, Tuck, but we know from Stormy Daniels that Daddy is the one who likes to get spanked.”Overall, “that was an upsetting little monologue,” Colbert concluded. “Angry Daddies punishing little girls? I’m guessing when Tucker wrote that, he was vigorously spanking something.”The Daily ShowAnd on The Daily Show, the guest host Michael Kosta also mocked Carlson’s bizarre spanking speech. Carlson began his speech with a cackle, delighting in what he said was his first appearance at a political rally. “I don’t want to be a hater – he’s excited for his first political rally. Seems like a perfectly reasonable time to laugh like an old-timey villain who tied a woman to the railroad tracks,” Kosta joked.And then he played one of Carlson’s most offending lines: “You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking, right now.”“This might be why you’ve never been invited to speak at a political rally before,” said Kosta. “You see, America, these Trump people, they aren’t weird. They just know that Trump is a big, strong daddy that’s coming home to spank us all. Totally normal stuff! I can’t wait to hear Tucker’s thoughts on the economy – ‘Inflation is like a babysitter, and she’s been naughty.’” More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      John Oliver on VP debate’s ‘civility’: ‘Etiquette is kind of beside the point’

      by

      On the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver ripped into those praising the “civility” of last week’s vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz. “Etiquette is kind of beside the point” when the stakes include immigrant rights and women’s bodily autonomy, he contended.“It’s like reading a ransom note and going, ‘This cursive is just so lovely. Look at the capital Y in ‘You have 24 hours before he dies.’ There are still some people who were raised right,’” he quipped.Oliver tore into Vance’s refusal to say, when asked directly, that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In what Walz called “a damning non-answer”, Vance deflected with: “I’m focused on the future.”“‘I’m focused on the future’ is one of the most generic store-brand fuckboy deflections there is,” Oliver fumed. “It’s no wonder Tim Walz broke the fourth wall there like he was in Abbott Elementary. Because ‘I’m focused on the future’ is what you say when you want to change the subject. If not, you just answer the question.”Oliver also touched on special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page report detailing the ways Trump and his cohort attempted to overturn the 2020 election, “reminding us yet again of the ridiculous steps he took to avoid leaving office”. According to the document, Trump allegedly told people in the White House he knew he had lost but that he would “fight like hell” anyway.“But it super matters if you lost,” Oliver countered. “It’s kind of the main thing that matters. That is the most unsettling thing you could possibly overhear if you work at the White House.”The report also notes that Trump muted his lawyer Sidney Powell during a phone call “when she was outlining her bogus fraud claims” and called her ideas crazy.“If I ever found out that I lied so badly that Donald Trump muted the call to say this is some crazy shit, you would never see me again,” Oliver laughed. “I would walk directly into the ocean.”Jokes aside, Oliver reminded: “None of this is theoretical. If he loses next month, there is every reason to believe Trump will dispute the results again and Vance has made it clear he’s got no problem with that. And that alone should be disqualifying.“For all the talk this week about his civility at the debate, let’s not forget: deep down [Vance] is the same colossal dipshit who spews rightwing hate with distressing ease and continues to defend the ‘big lie’ that the last election was stolen,” he continued. “It is all tremendously bleak, which is why – to borrow a phrase I heard recently – I’m focused on the future, specifically one in which in four weeks’ time, Trump hopefully loses this fucking election.”In his main segment, Oliver looked into how a routine traffic stop for “non-safety violations” can become a terror, with law enforcement disproportionately targeting people of color. Traffic stops are “the most common law enforcement interaction in America”, with police pulling over an average of 50,000 people in a day in the US.Those interactions can turn deadly: since 2017, armed police have killed at least 813 people in routine traffic stops, the vast majority of them Black. “We’ve all seen the videos of high-profile killings,” said Oliver, referring to the police shootings of Philando Castile, Daunte Wright and others, recorded by bystanders or police body-cams. “The horror of those videos should be seared into our collective consciouses by now.”Because of this pattern, for Black motorists, “driving comes with a constant undercurrent of fear”, said Oliver.He noted that there are legitimate safety reasons to pull over some drivers – someone driving too fast or recklessly, for instance, but no driver should worry about a traffic stop and “also have to worry about being harassed or potentially killed”.Such risks are not the product of a few bad apples in law enforcement, said Oliver; it’s “the inevitable result of deliberate decisions that have turned traffic stops into a systemic issue”.Oliver ticked through documentation of how police departments incentivize traffic stops as a means of funding, and encourage officers to apply deeply subjective criteria to pulling people over. Such “pretextual stops” basically equate to “shaking people down to see what crimes fall out”, he said.As an aside, he played an old PSA featuring characters from the musical Cats encouraging people to drive safely, lest their children become nothing but “memories”. “Let me just say this,” said Oliver. “That musical is an abomination. If there is ever a day that Andrew Lloyd Webber has no haters, that means that I am dead and so, by the way, is Patti LuPone.”On a more serious note, Oliver encouraged a full-stop end to pretextual stops and eliminating non-safety-related traffic stops. Such measures have already been adopted at the local level in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Philadelphia – where, after eight months, traffic stops were cut in half, meaning 12,000 fewer Black drivers were pulled over. He also advocated for decriminalizing minor traffic offenses (such as broken tail lights) and making data on traffic stops public, including the race of those pulled over – “frankly fucking incredible that it’s not already happening”, he noted.While some of these measures may be politically difficult, when it comes to non-safety-related traffic stops, “doing fewer of them for bullshit reasons should be a pretty easy sell”. More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Stephen Colbert on report on Trump’s attempts to steal election: ‘Smells like consequences’

      by

      Late-night hosts talk Jack Smith’s new report on how Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and Republican hypocrisy over Joe Biden’s age.Stephen ColbertBack in July, the supreme court released a 6-3 decision declaring that Trump had immunity from prosecution on acts committed as president, “all but guaranteeing that the case would be delayed past the election, and no one would be talking about or learning any more about it”, said Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s Late Show.“Well, surprise!” he added, holding a 165-page report by special counsel Jack Smith on Trump’s efforts to steal the election. “Mhmmm, that’s beefy. Smells like consequences.”The report details efforts by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election, and “how they are not covered by that ridiculous immunity ruling”, said Colbert.“We knew stuff in this report already, but it’s still gratifying to read the novelization of the horror movie we all lived through,” he added. According to the report, Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and in his bid to hold on to power, “resorted to crimes”.“Pretty damning language, but kinda weird word choice to say Trump ‘resorted’ to crimes,” said Colbert. “That’s like saying ‘With nowhere else to turn, the bear resorted to pooping in the woods.’”“Just to note, ‘resorted to crimes’ should not be confused with ‘crime resort’ – another name for Mar-a-Lago.”Seth MeyersAccording to Republicans, January 6 is ancient history, “which is why a new filing from special counsel Jack Smith in the election subversion case is so damning”, said Seth Meyers on Late Night. “It reminds everyone of what Trump and his allies tried to do, and how brazen they were about it.”According to Smith’s report, Trump was overheard saying to his daughter Ivanka: “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”“This is the most damning thing: in private, Trump knew he lost, despite what he was telling his supporters in public,” said Meyers.The report also details how Rudy Giuliani accidentally butt-dialed an NBC reporter, who overheard him discussing his need for cash and trashing the Biden family. “As a favor to Rudy, stop giving this man your phone number,” Meyers laughed. “The only two numbers he should have in his phone are his doctor and a liquor store that delivers.”“Rudy is the first criminal in history who has managed to rat on himself,” he continued. “The FBI doesn’t need to bug him or monitor his calls. They just have to sit around and wait until he accidentally sits on his phone and calls them.”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel marveled at how Trump is now trying to get out of election fraud charges by claiming that the investigators rigged the election. “The old ‘he who smelt it dealt it’ defense,” said Kimmel.As Trump said in a recent far-right news interview: “The election was rigged. I didn’t rig it. They did.”“He’s actually right about some of that – he didn’t rig the election,” said Kimmel. “He tried to rig the election, and failed to rig the election. He’s rig-noramus, is what he is.”Meanwhile, Trump was “ranting and raving” in Michigan this week on the campaign trail. “If you watch any of his speeches from the last election, from 2020, you’ll see he’s slower,” said Kimmel. “He slurs his words, he repeats the same stories over and over and over again. He’s repeatedly promised to release his medical records and has not.”Which is notable, because Republicans “were very worked up about Joe Biden and how old he was, his energy levels and ability to lead, but even though Trump is only three years younger than Biden, they don’t seem too worried about that anymore”, said Kimmel before a montage of all the GOP Biden criticisms easily applied to Trump’s ravings on the campaign trail. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers on JD Vance’s debate performance: ‘Brazen and shameless’

      by

      Late-night hosts talk JD Vance’s many lies during the vice-presidential debate and a new special counsel report detailing how Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election.Seth MeyersDonald Trump is “a bad liar”, said Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s Late Night, but he chose as his running mate “someone who is much more polished at it”. JD Vance, Ohio senator, is “brazen and shameless, but he’s admittedly very smooth. He’s like a slick used car dealer, and can be very convincing until you remember the car he’s trying to sell you is an AMC Gremlin with raccoons in the engine.”For instance, during the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday evening, Vance claimed that he was not in favor of a national abortion ban, but did support a “minimum national standard”.“That’s a ban,” Meyers corrected. “A ‘minimum national standard’ is just a bullshit way of describing a national abortion ban. It’s like when I go to the coffee shop on my block and they say they sell all-natural, gluten-free breakfast biscuits. That’s a cookie, dude. Except now you’ve guaranteed that my kids won’t stop asking me why they can’t have it.”Vance has said multiple times that he favors a national abortion ban. On a rightwing podcast in 2022, he said: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”“That’s what happens when you say yes to every rightwing podcast in the universe,” said Meyers. “JD Vance is on record contradicting every thing he says now. Politicians used to be worried about being caught on a hot mic. But now they go into every McMansion basement they can find like they’re on a hot mic scavenger hunt.”Vance also refused to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election. When asked point blank by his opponent, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, Vance deflected with: “I’m focused on the future.”“If you ask someone a straightforward question and they say ‘I’m focused on the future’ that’s how you know they’re caught in a lie,” said Meyers. “Vance may have delivered a slick performance last night, but it was just that – a performance.”Stephen Colbert“We are all still struggling to digest last night’s vice-presidential debate – which is surprising, because usually I have no trouble eating two slices of white bread,” joked Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night.The Late Show host described the debate as a “frosty cup of ZzzQuil”, as the two politicians performed civility and appeared to frequently agree with each other.The Atlantic described the debate as “a vision of what American politics could be without the distorting gravitational field generated by Donald Trump”.“I would love that,” said Colbert, “but here’s the thing: Donald Trump hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still the main character. This is like a scene from It without Pennywise on camera, and everyone is suddenly like, ‘Welp, guess there’s no more scary clowns in Derry. Ooh, free sewer balloon!’”Colbert took particular aim at Vance’s answer to a question on Obamacare, which Trump tried to destroy numerous times: “I think you could make a really good argument that [Trump] salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.”“That kind of junior high debate team sophistry is exactly the worst kind of behavior that intelligent people use to justify evil,” added Colbert. “You know, when you think about it, it could be argued that Godzilla really spearheaded Tokyo’s urban renewal.”Colbert was also incensed at Vance’s characterization of January 6: “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.”“Yeah, 14 days after his plot to overthrow the election ended in a violent coup that failed,” said Colbert. “That’s like saying to your ex: ‘Barbara, I think it’s rich that you’re calling me psychotically obsessed with our relationship, when I left your and Brad’s wedding peacefully. You’re the one who won’t stop talking about me setting fire to the DJ.’”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel looked ahead to election day: “We are 34 days away from Trump saying the election was rigged, just as he did four years ago.” Trump’s efforts to overturn the election four years ago are detailed in a new report from special counsel Jack Smith.The judge overseeing the January 6 case in Washington unsealed a 165-page court filing containing a “mountain” of testimony and evidence against Trump. “All the stuff we know happened, we now have in writing,” said Kimmel.The filing lays out “the increasingly desperate ways Trump tried to steal the election”, Kimmel explained. “You know, sometimes I would wonder, does Trump really believe that this election was stolen from him? And the answer is no, he doesn’t. The plan all along was to declare himself the winner even he if wasn’t, which he did. And then when he realized he was going to lose, he made up these claims of fraud.“He called governors and election officials,” he continued. “He hammered Mike Pence. He deliberately spread lies, even though he privately admitted they were crazy lies. He was directly involved in the fake elector scheme. And he stole all the Oreos from the White House snack cabinet.”The report also detailed just how many times Trump pressured Mike Pence to try to decertify the election, though he had no authority to do so. “There were meetings, phone calls, text messages – Pence was basically Trump’s Baby Reindeer,” Kimmel joked. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Veep cast reunites, with special guests, to raise money for Harris

      by

      As soon as Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential election and threw his support behind Kamala Harris, people immediately started comparing the shocking turn of events to something that would unfold on HBO’s critically acclaimed political satire Veep. At the time, the US vice-president was seen as a Selina Meyers-esque figure, what with her penchant for public awkwardness, clunky turns of phrase and the perception of her as a perpetual also-ran.Since then, things have changed quite a bit, with Harris rising to the occasion and running a highly effective and exciting campaign that has seen her ascend to frontrunner in the race (even if her advantage remains razor-thin).Still, as I wrote in my article from July, her campaign and the Democrats as a whole would be wise to lean into comparisons to Veep. Despite how venal and vain the characters on the show were, the workplace comedy (which wrapped up in 2019) remains as popular and relevant as ever.When you consider this alongside the fact that the majority of the cast, including and especially its star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, are outspoken liberals, it made all the sense in the world for some Democratic group to try to work with them to raise funds and awareness during this final leg of the campaign.That group ended up being the Wisconsin Democrats. A swing state that is likely to have a big hand in deciding not only who the next president is, but also which party controls the Senate, WisDems put together a live Zoom table read of a classic episode of Veep, featuring the majority of the cast, plus some big-name guest stars, to be livestreamed to the donors, with the money raised going towards presidential, congressional and assembly campaigns across the state.Fellow liberal comic and Veep super-fan Stephen Colbert took on hosting duties. Special guest stars included the Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin in her acting debut (not counting her childhood performance in a school production of Finian’s Rainbow), actor and comedian Kumail Nanjiani as a Syrian refugee (“I’m Pakistani, but I can play cat-eating immigrants from all over the world”), Seinfeld co-star Jason Alexander as a pompous feature writer, film-maker Kevin Smith as a reporter, and Larry David – who, in the most fitting turn of events imaginable, spent the first several minutes of the live stream trying to figure out how to work his Zoom – as Selina’s chief hatchet man, Ben Cafferty.View image in fullscreenReprising their roles from the show were actors Diedrich Bader, Nancy Lenehan, Gary Cole, Sam Richardson, Sufe Bradshaw, Timothy Simons, Reid Scott, Matt Walsh, Anna Chlumsky, Tony Hale and, of course, Louis-Dreyfus, while series regulars Clea DuVall and Sarah Sutherland took on other roles, since their characters don’t appear in this ep. (Patton Oswalt, who was also on the show, made a surprise appearance during the post-read Q&A.)The episode chosen was Crate, from season 3, which finds Selina and her cronies campaigning in New Hampshire ahead of the upcoming primaries. Various mishaps involving a pricey photo-op prop, an incriminating cellphone recording and the suicidal first lady, ensue. This episode is regarded as one of the very best in the show’s history, mostly due to one scene: Selina, having just learned that Potus will be resigning from office, effective immediately, shares a joyous freakout alongside her body man/closest confidant, Gary. It’s a bravura performance from both Louis-Dreyfus and Hale, one that probably secured them each an Emmy the following year.(It’s also fitting that this episode should be chosen, given that this intimate scene is immediately followed by Selina betraying Gary, a dynamic that repeats itself in the most devastating moment of the series finale.)For the read-through, the cast slipped back into their roles with ease. Everyone was on point, but Louis-Dreyfus and Hale were extra-dialed in, especially during their big scene. You got goosebumps watching them recreate it 10 years later, over Zoom, while still bringing all of the emotion they did during the actual filming.The guest stars all acquit themselves well, but it should come as no surprise that it was David who got the biggest laughs. While it’s impossible for him not to play himself, his singular delivery proved a perfect fit with Veep’s uber-cynical, profanity-laden screwball dialog.After the reading, we alternated between cast members interviewing a handful of state legislature candidates (with the major focus of the night revolving around abortion rights) and them fielding questions from viewers. Show creator Armando Iannucci joined in for this portion of the event.We got treated to a mini-Seinfeld reunion between Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander and David; Louis-Dreyfus sounded off on her hatred of AI; Smith talked about his favorite scene of the show (Selina accidentally getting high on St John’s wort, naturally); and David went off on a funny tangent about bald men looking better with beards (although he himself would never grow one because comedians can’t be stroking their beards).Someone asked the cast to give their favorite individual lines from the show. Louis-Dreyfus: “Jolly green jizz-face.” Simons: “[You’re] a meme, ma’am.” Walsh: “I’ve met [some] people … and a lot of them are fucking idiots.” Chlumsky: “[That’s] like [trying to use] a croissant [as] a [fucking] dildo. It doesn’t [do] the job and it [makes] a fucking mess!” Bradshaw: “[Get] the government out of my [fucking] snatch.” Colbert: “Danny Wah!”Iannucci seemed to confirm that Kent and Sue indeed hooked up at some point (“It probably involved algorithms”) and speculated on various characters’ outcomes (married politicos Amy and Bill are probably hosting a podcast with their dogs, while the “late” Andrew Meyer is living under a new identity on an island that he’s trying to buy with a view to it being recognized as its own country).When asked about the future of satire, Iannucci said it depended on who wins this election, as the entire premise of political comedy hinges on people holding politicians up to certain standards, standards Trump and his ilk have never shown the least bit of concern over.Colbert wrapped things up by having the cast read aloud their favorite insults of the show’s most despicable and hilarious character, noxious political aide and eventual veep, Jonah Ryan. These cruel gems include: “Childless cat-lady man”, “Disney plus extra chromosomes”, “Harry No-Styles”, “Rape-It Ralph”, “Moonsucker”, “Satellite licker”, “face-circumcised” and “stock photo for sperm-bank reject”.Right as Simons, the actor who played Ryan, broke the news that the fundraiser exceeded its stated goal of $600,000, Iannucci tossed out on final new Jonah barb that he’d come up with earlier in the day:“Jonah, even if you fell into the world’s most powerful castration machine, you’d still come out of it a dick.” More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Jimmy Kimmel on Trump campaign hacks: ‘Shows that his password is McNuggets123’

      by

      Late-night hosts talk the Trump campaign’s multiple campaign hacks, Kamala Harris’s lead among young voters and a dubious new Trump merchandise product.Jimmy KimmelThe Trump campaign has now been hacked twice in the last two months, “which is what happens when you store secret documents next to the urinal at a golf course”, said Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday evening.Intelligence officials suspect Iran is behind at least one attack, leading campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to claim that the attacks show how Iran is “terrified of the strength and resolve of Donald J Trump”.“And it also shows that his password is McNuggets123,” Kimmel joked.One of the journalists who received the leaked documents said the material may be “embarrassing or problematic” to members of the Trump campaign. “As if anyone who works for the Trump campaign is capable of embarrassment,” Kimmel noted.In other campaign news, Trump was in Georgia on Tuesday, “where they’re working very hard to fix the election for him”, and “once again, he had a lil McFit about whether or not Kamala Harris worked at McDonalds”. Trump repeatedly and falsely said Harris never worked for the fast-food chain, calling her past employment a “lie”.“He really should just be running for Mayor McCheese,” said Kimmel. “It’s so dumb, it’s so petty, but so is he.”Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers laughed at Trump’s campaign trail confession that his “personality defect” is wanting people to like him. “By his own confession, he likes people who like him, and that’s it,” said Meyers. “He doesn’t care about policy or character or integrity. He you like him, he likes you.”That’s why Trump endorsed Mark Robinson, the scandal-plagued Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina. In multiple appearances, Trump praised Robinson, who is Black, saying: “I’ve gotten to know him so well.” He also described Robinson as a “fine wine”, “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two”.“He’s really truly amazing,” said Meyers of Trump. “Everyone agrees Martin Luther King is a great person, but only Trump would say ‘I know someone twice as good! Every night he has two dreams!’”Among Robinson’s numerous scandals is a CNN report of his past racist comments on a pornographic website called Nude Africa, including calling himself a “black Nazi”. In another comment, Robinson, using his full name in his username, said slavery was “not bad” and that he wished it would come back.“First of all, who uses their full name on a porn website?” Meyers wondered. “I don’t even use my full name when I make a dinner reservation – I use Jimmy Fallon, because I want a table.”Despite his past support of Robinson, the Trump campaign is now pretending they don’t know him, and have removed joint events from their calendar. “A healthy, functional political party would do some introspection about how and why they keep attracting deranged extremists and anti-social weirdos like these guys,” Meyers concluded. “But the GOP would rather lie and pretend they have never had anything to do with Robinson in the first place.”Stephen ColbertAnd on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert cited a new Harvard youth voting poll that found Harris leads young female voters 70% to 23%. “Young women are going to save us all. And young men are going to play Xbox and see how high they can jump off a big rock,” Colbert joked.In an effort to attract young voters, the Harris campaign has committed to visiting over 150 college campuses. “Ooh, 150, she’s trying to break Matt Gaetz’s record,” Colbert quipped. “I’m kidding, obviously he’d never date a college girl. Or, as he calls them, mature honeys.”According to a polling director at Harvard, the results show “a significant shift in the overall vibe”.“Yeah the vibes are immaculate,” Colbert said. “The analysis shows that Harris ate and left no crumbs. Her campaign had a bussin’ glow-up. In conclusion, the children have broken my brain. Boots king!”In other news, “Trump may be busy campaigning, but he’ll never lose sight of his first love: selling garbage,” said Colbert. On Tuesday, the former president announced that he’d be selling silver Trump coins with his face on them. The coins are selling for $100 apiece, though the silver they’re made of only costs $30.“What a deal!” Colbert deadpanned, before imagining one man’s justification for buying the coins: “Honey, I know I bought a Trump coin at a 210% loss, but you can use the Trump coin to buy Truth Social stock, and once that eventually bounces back we’ll invest the profit in an NFT trading card of his gold sneakers, which is pegged to the price of the little pieces of his suit we got from when he got arrested, then convert it to Trump crypto, which we’ll use to buy Melania’s book, which, get this, is worth one Trump silver coin.” More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We had no political agenda’: the White House hosts a West Wing TV reunion

      by

      The marine band struck up a familiar theme. The door of the Oval Office swung open. Out strode the president and first lady to address an expectant crowd – that is, the real first lady, Jill Biden, and the president that fans of the TV show The West Wing used to secretly crave: Jed Bartlet, alias actor Martin Sheen.After a decade in which US politics has often felt like the work of a hyper-imaginative screenwriter, with ever more unlikely plot twists including the election of a reality TV star, it felt strangely natural to see Sheen stepping into the shoes of Joe Biden as his show’s theme music filled the Rose Garden.“We just came from the Oval,” said Jill Biden. “But even though Joe is away hosting leaders of Australia and India and Japan in Delaware, he wanted to make sure that President Bartlet and his staff had a chance to see the Oval Office again.”Sheen and fellow cast members had come to the White House to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first episode of The West Wing, the seven-season drama about an idealist liberal president and his fast-talking staff.On Friday, in warm sunshine, there were references to “big blocks of cheese” – a tradition on the show of requiring presidential staffers to meet with eccentric or offbeat constituents – and the walk-and-talk dialogues in which characters moved through the halls at high speed. Waiters passed out bourbon-and-ginger ale cocktails called the Jackal, a reference to press secretary CJ Cregg’s dance and lip-sync routine in one episode.Sheen – who has said his character was a conglomeration of Democrats John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton – rolled back the years. In classic Bartlet mode, he exhorted the crowd to find something worth fighting for, “something deeply personal and uncompromising, something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh”.View image in fullscreenThen Aaron Sorkin, the show’s creator, declared: “Our cast will live on as one of the best in the history of television,” and recognised those in attendance. Among them were Richard Schiff, who played communications director Toby Ziegler; Janel Moloney, who played assistant Donna Moss; and Dulé Hill, who played the president’s body man, Charlie Young.Sorkin also noted the absence of a few high-profile actors – Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe, better known to fans as Cregg, Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn – who he said were on set elsewhere. “The rest of us are apparently unemployed,” he joked.After the crowd laughed, a voice chimed in from Sorkin’s right. “Not yet!” Jill Biden said. It was a nod to the fact that her husband still has four months left in office – and a quick retort worthy of Bartlet’s exchanges with wife Abbey Bartlet, played by Stockard Channing.The West Wing remains a favourite of many who now work in Washington. Among those spotted in the Rose Garden were the House foreign affairs chair, Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, and Joe Walsh, once a Tea Party-aligned Illinois representative who is now a fierce critic of former president Donald Trump.Sorkin reflected: “We had no political agenda. We were trying to do a good show every week. But the greatest delivery system ever invented for an idea is a story and, once in a while, we’ll hear from someone who was inspired to go into public service because of our show. And that’s something that 25 years ago this week, none of us could have foreseen or even dared to hope for.”Born in the last year of the 20th century, the show illustrates that there is nothing so remote as the recent past. Its run coincided with the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was off the air by the time Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected and long gone when the Covid-19 pandemic and January 6 insurrection unfolded.Sorkin continued: “The show was idealistic, aspirational and romantic. Over the years, I’ve noticed that during times of peak political tension, pundits will warn us not to expect ‘a West Wing moment’.View image in fullscreen“They mean not to expect a selfless act of statesmanship. Not to expect anyone to put country first. Don’t expect anyone to swing for the fences or reach for the stars. But the fact is, West Wing moments do happen and Dr Biden, we saw proof of that on the morning of July 21.”That was the day Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election after a disastrous debate performance and growing concerns over the 81-year-old’s mental and physical condition. For months, however, Biden had been in denial. If anyone wants to look for an on-screen parallel, it might be Bartlet hiding a multiple sclerosis diagnosis while running for president.The final season of The West Wing saw Bartlet passing on the torch to fellow Democrat Matthew Santos, played by Jimmy Smits. He becomes America’s first Latino president after defeating Senator Arnold Vinick of California, portrayed by Alan Alda as the kind of old school Republican who is now an endangered species in the Trump era.Nothing, perhaps, dates The West Wing more than that. More