Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Samantha Bee try to defuse the letter bombs with a little humor

Late night hosts crack dark jokes about the letter bomb
(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, The Tonight Show, Full Frontal)

With the midterms 13 days away, "a lot of Democrats are on edge, especially today, because a serial bomber has sent explosive devices to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, major Democratic donor George Soros, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Maxine Waters, and CNN," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Authorities don't have a suspect yet, but based on the intended targets they have released this sketch." The MAGA-bomber?

CNN got its letter bomb mid-broadcast. "That's ironic — it's like back when The New York Times was reporting on the Titanic and their offices hit an iceberg," Colbert said, throwing in a joke about Wolf Blitzer reporting from the "Situation Bodega." White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders put out a statement condemning the letter bombs and Vice President Mike Pence tweeted out a better one, and President Trump retweeted it. Colbert was underwhelmed. "It reminds me of Lincoln's first draft of the Gettysburg Address: 'What that first guy said.'''

"When news breaks like this, everyone's rushing to get information out and mistakes can happen, like this tweet from Fox News: Suspicious package sent to CNN contained some kind of 'white power,'" Colbert said. "An honest mistake. Fox has since tweeted out another unfortunate error: 'White House committed to finding perpetrator, vows do everything they Klan.' We made one of those up." He ended on the $1.5 billion mega-millions jackpot.

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Full Frontal's Samantha Bee found the Fox News tweet puzzling, too: "I don't mean to be critical right now, but autocorrect doesn't change 'white powder' to 'white power' unless you type 'white power' a lot."

The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon started with the lottery bonanza before turning to the letter bombs to CNN and top Democrats. "When he heard that, the president was like, 'Oh my god, is Fox News okay?'" Fallon joked. "Out of precaution, President Trump evacuated himself to a golf course — just to be safe." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

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.