Late Night Tackles President Trump
Seth Meyers weighs which Trump war is nuttier: The border, or Amazon?
"This has been a week of [President] Trump indulging his various obsessions," Seth Meyers said, and he took a look at two of those on Wednesday's Late Night: the border, and Amazon. Trump has been railing against a "caravan" of Honduran refugees heading toward the U.S., arguing that the U.S. essentially doesn't have a southern border because, he said, former President Barack Obama instituted "catch and release." "That's right, it's called catch and release — or as Trump used to call it, marriage," Meyers joked.
Now, Trump is sending "the military" to "guard" the border. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is "already planning your dumb military parade, and now you want him to guard the border?" Meyer asked. "Why don't you just combine the two and have the parade along the Mexican border? Think about it: Have you ever tried to cross the street during a parade?" Trump settled on ordering the National Guard down to watch the border, but he's openly pining for a U.S.-Mexico DMZ.
Trump is also obsessed with taking down Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, and he's apparently under the mistaken impression that the U.S. Postal Service loses money from Amazon. "Trump's behavior is that of a petulant autocrat impulsively attacking his enemies by lying about them, but here's the thing," Meyers said: "Despite his rhetoric, his own government is actually helping Amazon," from the big tax cut to allowing the Pentagon to purchase all commercial items through Amazon.
Meyers was conflicted about the military shopping at the retailer that sells Alexa, with her random evil laughs, but he was pretty sure Republicans wouldn't be happy if Obama had attacked a private company. "For years, Republicans spun a wild fantasy about an imperial president interfering in the free marketplace by picking winners and losers, and now they've got a president who is actually doing that, and their silence is deafening," he said. Watch below. Peter Weber