Stephen Colbert is underwhelmed with Trump's 'Fake News Awards,' but Jimmy Kimmel claps back

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel respond to the Fakeys

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live)

published 19 January 2018

The U.S. is hurtling toward a government shutdown, 9 million children are on the verge of losing health care, and North Korea has the bomb, but on Wednesday night President Trump "stayed laser-focused — by announcing the winners of his 'Fake News Awards,' the Fakeys," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday, "and I'm sad to say, The Late Show was snubbed." It wasn't for lack of effort. "Like everything from Donald Trump, this award ceremony was overhyped and underwhelming," Colbert said. Trump had "pumped this as a big event," but all he did was tweet out a broken link to the Republican National Committee website. "404 Error — yes, presidency not found."

Eventually, they got the link to work, and the winners were ... just a poorly formatted listicle. "There isn't even a trophy," Colbert groused. "You can't just make a list and and call it awards." The RNC justified hosting Trump's listicle because the media has "spent 90 percent of the time focused on negative coverage," a claim Colbert found reasonable. "Well, yeah — Trump is bad at being president 90 percent of the time," he said. "Just this week, we are preparing for a government shutdown, found out that Trump had an affair with a porn star, and almost lost Hawaii. It's only Thursday!"

Jimmy Kimmel was also underwhelmed with Trump's presentation. "But I have to say, it was very thoughtful of the president to hand out awards to the media — the Dishonest and Corrupt Media Awards, but still, they're awards," he said on Thursday's Kimmel Live. "And since he did that for us, on behalf of the media, I think it's only fair that we extend the same honor to him." The categories for Kimmel's "Dishonest and Corrupt President Awards" include "Least Convincing Display of Love," "Best Fabricated Numbers," and "Outstanding Achievement in Obama Fan Fiction."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

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.