Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers laugh at Trump's low-energy Iowa rally, Capitol riot crowd size fixation

published 12 October 2021

"Happy Indigenous Peoples or Columbus Day, depending upon which cable news network you watch," Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday's Kimmel Live. "It's weird to celebrate these on the same day — it's like celebrating herpes on Valentine's Day."

"Donald Trump is the subject of yet another tell-all book about his time in office, this one is called Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," by Jonathan Karl of ABC News, Kimmel said. "Among the many not-surprising surprises, Karl says that during the riot on Jan. 6, Trump was bragging about the size of the crowd that stormed the Capitol." That's "like bragging about the size of your tumor," he laughed. "Size matters so much to him, it's almost as if he's insecure about something." Trump also reportedly had to do multiple takes of his video telling his supporters to stop ransacking the Capitol "because he kept forgetting to tell them to stop ransacking the Capitol," he said. "I'd love to see the outtakes from that one."

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"I'm thrilled to be back in front of an audience, and I'm just hoping my audience is a little more enthusiastic than Trump's audience," Seth Meyers said to his first live Late Night audience in 19 months. "On Saturday, he went to Iowa to hold yet another rally where he repeated the same deranged lies about the election that he's been repeating for months, and yet even his own crowd wasn't exactly electrified by hearing the same old incoherent nonsense over and over again."

"It's been liberating not having to think or care about" Trump, Meyers said. "Unfortunately, the GOP has not felt the same way, they're still fully devoted to Trump. He was joined at his rally by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, virtually the entirety of the Republican Party remains enthralled to Trump and committed to the Big Lie that the election was somehow stolen from him, as demonstrated by this interview the No. 2 House Republican, Steve Scalise, did on Fox News Sunday," but instead of evidence "all they have are these bats--t conspiracy theories promoted by the rotating cast of weirdos who inhabit Trump's orbit." Yes, there are Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani cousin jokes.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.