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    Trump signs executive order to cut funding for public broadcasters

    Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to cut public funding for the news outlets NPR and PBS, accusing them of being biased.NPR and PBS are only partly funded by the US taxpayer and rely heavily on private donations.The US president has long had an antagonistic relationship with most mainstream news media, previously describing them as the “enemy of the people”.A notable exception is the powerful conservative broadcaster Fox News, some of whose hosts have taken on leading roles in his administration.“National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),” Trump said in his executive order. “I therefore instruct the CPB board of directors and all executive departments and agencies to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”He added that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens”.The CPB budget has already been approved by Congress through 2027, which raises questions about the scope of Trump’s order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMore than 40 million Americans listen to NPR public radio each week, and 36 million watch a local television station from the PBS network each month, according to their estimates.The NPR director, Katherine Maher, estimated in March that the radio station would receive about $120m (£102m) from the CPB in 2025, “less than 5% of its budget”.The media rights group RSF warned on Friday about “an alarming deterioration in press freedom” in the US under Trump and “unprecedented” difficulties for independent journalists around the world. More

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    Stephen Colbert on potential alien life: ‘Take us to your leader, we don’t have one anymore’

    Late-night hosts spoke about the Easter weekend, potential alien life and Donald Trump’s recent meeting with the Italian prime minister.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert pointed out that this year’s Easter Sunday also falls on 4/20, the unofficial holiday for weed enthusiasts.He joked that it would be “the Sunday he is risen and you is high”.This week saw Trump meet with the rightwing Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Some had hoped she might “ease the tariff tension” as she is often referred to as a “Trump whisperer”.He then played footage of Meloni speaking in Italian to Trump who complimented her directly after. “I’ll have the same thing she ordered but double meatball, double parm,” Colbert joked.Meloni has now made an offer to Trump to make an official visit to Italy, a place Colbert said he would feel at home as he “looks like a pile of prosciutto with a little spaghetti on top”.Due to massive cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, the FDA might have to stop inspections at food facilities. Colbert joked that we would know get to enjoy Tyson’s tangy buffalo beaks and thumbs.The administration is “actively trying to make health officials dumber” with halted efforts to collect data on many issues. It will now lead to “TLC’s sexy new reality show Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea Island”.This is all “just the tip of the cutberg” with the weather service also in trouble, seeing 300 employees let go as severe storm season ramps up, “when we need the weather people the most”.Colbert said that Twisters “will soon be the only programming on the weather channel”.He said that some are scrambling to make major discoveries “before science ends forever” such as this week’s reveal that there is possible signature of life on a distant planet.Officials have said that further studies are needed but Colbert expressed excitement, saying: “Please aliens take us to your leader, we don’t have one anymore.”Conspiracy theorists have also claimed that this week’s controversial all-female Blue Origin space stunt was faked. “Oh, I don’t know if I believe that,” he said. “Maybe Kubrick could fake the moon landing but you could never fake Gayle King’s sheer terror.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host also spoke about Easter. “If Jesus comes back and sees what’s going on, we are in deep trouble,” he said.Kimmel noted that he was “not sensing a lot of Easter spirit this year” and that Easter Sunday falling on 4/20 will lead to “some very long and confusing egg hunts”.Egg prices remain high, which has seen an “outpouring of tips for other stuff you can colour instead” such as potatoes and marshmallows, but Kimmel said Jesus would only come back for “boiled eggs”.In response to the sky-high prices, he asked: “Is anyone else tired of all the winning yet?”Meanwhile, Trump has given the White House an “extreme makeover” with plenty of gold added. His press secretary called it “the golden office for the golden age”, which Kimmel called “quite the spin”.He joked that for someone anti-DEI, he has the “same taste as Liberace” before asking: “Do you think Donald Trump understands that the story of King Midas is a cautionary tale?”He also spoke about the Meloni visit, joking that Trump probably took her to an Olive Garden to “make her feel at home” before airing a clip of him showing off “his vast knowledge of other lands”.Trump referred to the Congo and said: “I don’t know what that is.” Kimmel asked: “When is someone gonna show that man a map?”He said the government is running like a “well-soiled machine” before moving on to the alien planet news, detailing that researchers have found an equivalent of sea scum. Kimmel joked that we “may have found a new home for Ted Cruz”.The planet is 120 light years away, so Kimmel said “off you go Elon and Jeff, time to climb into those space dildos and boldly go away”.He also joked that we have a “better chance of being visited by aliens than Canadians” with tourism rates down post-tariffs. More

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    Saturday Night Live: Jack Black returns for a stellar episode

    Saturday Night Live opens with Donald Trump’s (James Austin Johnson’s) “liberation day” speech, where he rolled out his disastrous tariff plan, which he calls Magda: “Make America Great Depression again.” Trump notes that no country is safe from his tariffs, including what he mistakenly thinks is a place called McDonald’s Island (“Get me to God’s country,” he exclaims in the first of two digs at last week’s musical guest, Morgan Wallen, which gets a huge pop from the crowd), as well as South Africa.The mention of the latter nation brings out Elon Musk (Mike Myers), who glitches out before whining about how poorly Tesla is doing. To combat this, he introduces a new, fully self-vandalizing model, which comes complete with AI-powered graffiti. Choice includes penises, swastikas, and his favorite: “Swastikas made out of penises.” Before he can complain about how dumb the tariffs are, Trump pushes him out of the way and wraps things up.This is a thoroughly fine send-up of this week’s big news story. Johnson is on point as ever, Myers’s Musk remains solid and appropriately mean-spirited, and the jokes about the tariffs basically write themselves.Jack Black hosts for the fourth time, but the first time in 20 years. The pressure is too much, so he decides to quit on the spot, until he’s brought back around by the band rocking out. He performs a self-referential version of Steve Winwood’s Back in the Highlife Again, taking it into the crowd before introducing a marching band for the big finish. It is a characteristically electric performance, but one that some of Black’s fans might find hard to fully enjoy in the wake of his throwing longtime friend and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass under the bus this past summer after an on-stage Trump joke led to rightwing backlash.Love Match is a game show where a single gal picks from three available bachelors, none of whom she can see. The contestants include a nerdy nice guy, a baby-faced playboy, and Black’s Gene, an emotionally intuitive man cosplaying as Indiana Jones. When Gene starts to win the girl over, the host intercedes to let her know he’s dressed like the iconic adventurer, which leads to an argument about whether he has ever heard of the character. This is in line with a certain modern-day SNL sketches based entirely around the minutia of a pop culture institution; see the Matt Damon Weezer sketch from a few years back or the Chris Rock Simpsons one from earlier this season. These are usually fun, but this one doesn’t push the premise or specificity far enough.Then, Black teams up with Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah to pitch Flamin’ Hot Preparation H Brief and disposable, but the visual of Black bent over a chair, pants and underwear down around his ankles, applying the burning cream to his hind parts as his CGI pal watches in horror, is good for a laugh.A dinner between college friends turns into a game of liberal one-upmanship, as each of them brag about how they have given up social media and alcohol, only read physical books, shop at thrift stores, watch foreign films with no subtitles, teach Spanish to special needs kids, and swim exclusively at black-owned pools. A solid fart joke can’t save this one from the fourth wall breaking mugging.We travel back in times to Athens, circa 500 BC, to witness the first performance of the first ever play. The audience, not understanding what they’re watching, continually interrupt the performance, accusing the actors of lying and tricking them–at least until they’re promised nudity. This is better in concept than execution.Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim perform a Jamaican reggae song about miserable goth kids dragged to the sunny island on family vacations. Black jumps in as said goth kid all grown up, singing to the tune of My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. That unexpected moment, along with Michael Longfellow’s very convincing goth brat, make this a winner.Elton John and Brandi Carlile are the night’s musical guests. They play the rollicking honky-tonk song Little Richard’s Bible. This is a breath of fresh air after last week’s miserable turn.Speaking of, Colin Jost kicks off Weekend Update by reporting: “Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at good night.”A little later, he brings back previous Update guests Grant and Alyssa (Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline), the couple you can’t believe are together, to talk about spring romance. The boorish bro and nerdy wallflower explain that their dynamic works because they have ground rules: he does the dishes (“Because I like playing in the water”), she cooks (“Because I’m not allowed to touch the stove”), and finally, per her: “Don’t wear those little shorts around unless you’re trying to drop them.” The characters are clearly heightened versions of the performers, which is a big reason why they land.Jost reports on Russell Brand being charged for rape, before wincingly rolling a clip of Brand as SNL host, introducing musical guest Chris Brown.Then, in response to the White House correspondents’ dinner’s announcement that they will no longer feature a comedian at their yearly celebration out of deference to Trump, Nwodim comes out to make the case for herself hosting. She promises not to talk politics and instead only do material about the actual diner. Taking up Def Jam-inspired persona she performs a tight 3, getting the audience to shout out ‘SHIT!’ at one point. A great turn from Nwodim, whose fake material is funnier than most jokes on SNL these days.Black and Sarah Sherman play a new couple who decide to take things to the next level by sleeping together. This leads to a sensual ballad (which they perform while floating above the bedroom set on wires). But, as described in their song, the lackluster sex (“First we do things to me for a while, then we do things to you not that long”) and dirty talk (“You’ve been so bad I’m gonna … kill you”), lead them to bring in a third (Bowen Yang) and even a fourth (Carlile). Kudos to Carlile for making her comedy debut via literal high-wire act.Next, Black fronts a jam band, inviting musicians in the crowd to jump on stage and get in on their cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. But everyone who joins in – a couple of long-haired hippies, a busty wet T-shirt contestant, a crackhead, even a dog – only plays the bass. Like the musicians in the sketch, this is one-note.John and Carlile perform their second set, then the show wraps up with a black-and-white sketch set on VJ Day. We see the events surrounding the famous photo taken of a returning sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. The nurse’s actual boyfriend, a hot-dog scarfing doofus who spent the war stateside drawing racist (even for the time) propaganda cartoons, watches in shock and dismay as she makes out with half a dozen returning troops. There’s not much meat on this bone, but the cast is having fun with their old-timey accents. It beats most of the recent episode enders.Following a quick tribute to the late, great Val Kilmer, we get the curtain call, with everyone sticking around this time. This episode was a big improvement over last week’s, thanks to them knowing how to use the host, two excellent performances from real-deal star musicians, and a show-stealing turn from Nwodim. More

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    Jon Stewart on Democrats: ‘It’s Trump’s world and we’re just cowering in it’

    Late-night hosts took aim at the ineffective tactics of the Democrats while also taking issue with Donald Trump’s response to the weekend’s deadly storms.Jon StewartOn The Daily Show, Jon Stewart said that “it is Trump’s world and we’re just cowering in it” in a segment devoted to calling out how poorly the Democrats have handled his second presidency.Over the weekend, Trump played golf once again, which led to a picture of him walking into an office “in his golf attire to bomb the shit out of Yemen”. In attacking the country he “continued a presidential tradition going back decades”.With the recent vote over the new Republican budget to avoid a shutdown, Democrats finally had “an opportunity to stand up” to a “wannabe tyrant”.The budget was criticised by some as a non-starter yet Chuck Schumer broke ranks and voted to move it forward. “What the fuck happened?” he asked.In an interview, Schumer said that the party would “keep at it” but Stewart joked: “Don’t you have to start it to keep at it?”In another interview, Schumer said the best time to reason with Republicans was in the gym as they are more open and less inhibited. “That’s your fucking plan?” he asked. “I’m gonna dangle my balls out of my shorts and then … at the gym?”Stewart also found footage of him saying the same thing back in 2019. “You know I’m not here to posture-shame but for a guy who seems to be spending most of his life in gym: a little less talky-talk, a little more core.”He added: “They’re only being agreeable with you because they want you to leave them alone.”Stewart also joked that “pedalling really hard and not going anywhere is a great metaphor for the Democratic party right now”.He also played a montage of Democrats comparing the state of things to a fever that will inevitably break. “These Republicans are committed to a plan born of an ideological 50- to 60-year project to remake the United States … and classifying it as a fever excuses you.”He said it “allows you to pretend that this is an issue of messaging” and that that was “no match for the game the Republicans are playing”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host said that on St Patrick’s Day it was “nice to have an excuse to drink on a Monday” given how bad things currently are.There was “a terrible weekend of deadly storms” yet the president who chided Joe Biden for being away when Hurricane Helene raged decided to play golf once again. “If you scored hypocrisy like golf he’d be 30 strokes under par right now,” he said.Trump claimed victory again but Kimmel asked: “Who are the other players in this tournament?”He joked that it could just be “Eric with his Fisher Price clubs” and demanded “a forensic investigation” into the game.Later that day, Trump finally posted that he would be praying with Melania for those affected. “Praying together might be the only activity those two do less than sleeping together,” Kimmel joked.This weekend also saw Trump get accidentally prodded by a fuzzy microphone during an interview. “How funny would it be if that happened every time he was interviewed from here on out?” he joked. More

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    Stephen Colbert on Trump’s second term: ‘The last five weeks have been shock and awful’

    Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s disastrous start to his second term as president and looked at the rising cost of food.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about his expectations versus his reality of Trump’s comeback, saying that the president has done “every terrible thing I could imagine” but that “I just never imagined he’d do all of them at once.”He said: “The last five weeks have been shock and awful.” Things have got so bad, he added, that even those within the Maga-verse have been getting “buyers’ remorse”, with reports of unhappy Trump voters.Colbert said it was “kinda hard to feel a lot of sympathy” for them, though. “They ordered the turd soup then said: ‘Waiter, there’s turds in my soup’ and then they came back four years later and asked: ‘Do you still have that turd soup?’” he joked.While Trump had promised that prices would go down on day one, his supporters “still think things are too expensive”.The last few weeks have seen “Elon slice through the federal government like a drunk raccoon with a samurai sword”.Colbert moved on to the soaring price of eggs, which may still go up even further by 41%. “This year’s Easter egg hunt is going to be The Purge,” he said.Stores in New York have been selling loose eggs for those who can’t afford a full pack and customs agents have stopped at least 90 people from smuggling them into the country.Colbert said that the head of the smuggling operation is “Pablo Eggs-cobar”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host also spoke about how bad things have quickly become under Trump, joking that he was “tired of all the winning”.He said that “no one seems to know what the hell is going on” with Elon’s ongoing “chainsaw massacre of the federal workforce”.He spoke about an email sent to federal workers asking them to share five things they accomplished last week or face job loss while also talking about Republican senators demanding a meeting with the White House chief of staff to complain about cuts.The Department of Veterans Affairs has seen 1,400 jobs cut, which is a “tricky situation for Trump” as “we know he doesn’t think much of veterans but he loves affairs”.He said that Elon had been “just about as efficient as a Cybertruck in 2in of snow”.This week has seen the far-right Republican Lauren Boebert tweet that she didn’t realise how much “distain” she had for many of these departments. “Maybe let’s not get rid of that Department of Education just yet,” Kimmel said.The Federal Aviation Administration also cancelled its major contract with Verizon to instead sign with Starlink, a company owned by Elon Musk. “Nothing shady about that at all,” he said.Giving Musk government contracts is “like putting Pac-Man in charge of fruits”.The Trump administration also claimed it would release the full list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients and flight logs this week but instead just released “binders full of information everyone already had”, which led Kimmel to say: “Everything these people do is screwed up.”He remarked that the craziest thing is that Trump was “good friends” with Epstein, something his followers have chosen to ignore. More

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    Seth Meyers on Trump and Musk: ‘They’re trying to rip you off’

    Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s too-close relationship and how one is clearly in control of the other.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about how voters have been most concerned about grocery prices yet Trump has been “easily distracted by silly stuff” and placed his attention elsewhere.This week saw him elected chair of the Kennedy Center, which led to Meyers joking that the next round of honors would include “Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and Big Mouth Billy Bass”.It’s meant that he’s had less time to help Musk in his project of “dismantling the government”. Meyers joked that it’s “fun sometimes to pretend bad things might be good things”.In audio from a call about the Kennedy Center, Trump said he was going to make it “hot” again like he had also made the presidency. “You didn’t make the presidency hot unless you mean hot like a low-grade fever,” he said.Another “frivolous distraction Trump is obsessed with” concerns him renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has led to Associated Press journalists being banned from official press events as they refuse to obey. “At least give people like a week to process it!” Meyers said.He also said that “we should stop waiting for tech companies to be part of the pushback” with both Google and Apple following the change on official maps.Meyers played a clip of Trump trying to explain Musk’s dismantling, which was a ramble about magnets, tractors and planes. “Every time Trump speaks I feel like a guy who started season two of Severance without watching season one,” he said.He said they want to avoid talking about what’s really happening as “the reality of what they’re doing is unpopular and illegal” and Musk essentially wants “direct control of the government” by taking over the regulatory group that would otherwise be able to stop his business practices.He said that there is “a lot of bad stuff happening right now” and “they’re trying to rip you off and they hope you’ll be distracted by all the nonsense going through Trump’s head”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host spoke about the nationwide shortage of eggs with grocery stores hiking prices and limiting the number of eggs customers can purchase.He said that regular eggs are now “more valuable than Faberge”.For Valentine’s Day, he joked that Trump has “got a little something for his sugar vladdy” after a call with Vladimir Putin in which the Russian dictator was given essentially everything he wanted out of the negotiation.Kimmel said it is “honestly amazing the guy only bankrupted three casinos” while saying that “if you attack and murder our allies, it will make no difference at all”.Trump’s rambling explanation led Kimmel to say that we are “one weird press conference away from Trump saying he wants to move Ukraine to Gaza”.Then, “as if we don’t have enough to worry about”, Kimmel said that “measles and wide-leg jeans are back”, joking about Kendrick Lamar’s outfit choice at the Super Bowl.He reassured us that “Bobby Brainworm is on the job” to fix measles with the outspoken anti-vax crusader confirmed as the new head of health and human services.In a press conference, Robert F Kennedy Jr said that God sent him Trump. “Next God is gonna send us diphtheria,” Kimmel joked.The clip saw Kennedy engage in “triple-A ass kissing”, which Kimmel said would have aroused Trump. “Melania couldn’t turn him on like that the first night they met,” he joked. More

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    Seth Meyers on Elon Musk’s US takeover: ‘A billionaire coup’

    Late-night hosts spoke about the damage being caused by Donald Trump’s new right-hand man as well as the president’s unconvincing attempts to show off his Christian side.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers started by saying that despite the recent election, “the real president is Elon Musk”, who has shown he is in control despite being “very unpopular” with voters.He said the billionaire has been launching a “de facto takeover of the federal government” with his “team of unaccountable hatchet men”.Recent polls have shown that Americans are unhappy with Musk’s increased control but Trump has been defending him during typically hard-to-understand rambles, resembling “a real-time version of Mad Libs”.Musk has been frantically figuring out what to keep and what to cut within the government, with Meyers showing that he ultimately wants a “wholesale removal of regulations”.Meyers called it “a billionaire coup”.Musk has been busy dismantling USAid, with elected senators recently being blocked from entering the agency’s headquarters. “I’d be so embarrassed if I was a senator and I couldn’t enter the building based on something called Doge,” he said.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also criticised Musk and his “crew of teenage mutant incels” who are busy trying to “tear apart 250 years of democracy like seagulls fighting over a bag of french fries”.They are trying to fire many people within the federal government and part of that has seen the White House ordering the CIA to send an unclassified email with the names of all employees hired over the last two years.Colbert calmed viewers by saying that according to an official, the people would be protected as the list only included the first names and first initial of the last name. “Well then we’re fine,” he said. “That is an uncrackable code.”He then joked that no one would be able to figure out who he was targeting if he said that it would be funny and good for the US if “obvious fascist Elon M got his junk stuck in a four slice toaster”.Colbert then said “Trump’s goons are also doing increasingly useless things just to scour the government clean of any trace of DEI” including taking down any reference to diversity or inclusion on walls or desks. “No federal agency is safe from the anti-compassion cyberdorks,” he said.They have also been ensuring that bathroom signs comply with Trump’s ruling. “What a waste of time,” he said. “The only bathroom signs that should be taken down are the confusing ones in theme restaurants.”He then continued by saying that “it’s not all bad news, some of it is also scary” as he spoke about a second bird flu strain that has now infected cattle. “This can mean only one thing: the birds are having sex with the cows,” he said. “Please no one tell the bees, they’re going to feel so betrayed.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host spoke about this weekend’s Super Bowl, “also known as ‘get drunk at a friend of a friend’s weird living room’ evening”.Kendrick Lamar is the half-time performer, which means that it will lead to the “largest group of people ever to see anyone call Drake a bitch ever”.Trump will be in attendance and Kimmel joked that “he said he’s gonna let Elon pick the winner this year”.This week also saw the president attend the National Prayer Breakfast because he “doesn’t like it when people worship anyone but him”.He added that “of all the unbelievable things about Donald Trump, religious people believing he is also a religious person might be the toughest one to understand”.Kimmel said that if Trump met Jesus, “he’d call him a loser, he’d tell him to get a haircut and put a shirt on”.He also said the only reason he is going to the Super Bowl is because “he can’t stand to have even one day when he’s on TV less than Taylor Swift”. More

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

    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