Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers aren't impressed with the new border deal, Trump's theatrics over signing it

Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers decry the drama

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, Late Night)

Lawmakers reached a bipartisan deal to keep the government open but, ironically, "if there's one thing we've learned about Donald Trump in the two years he's been president, it's that you can't negotiate with him," Seth Meyers said on Wednesday's Late Night. President Trump "made a big show of championing the bipartisan talks after he caved in the shutdown fight," but after the deal's framework was nailed down Monday night, Trump pleaded ignorance. "He literally said I had a choice between running the government and going on Fox News, and I chose Fox News," Meyers said, paraphrasing. "No quote has ever summed up Trump's presidency better than that."

All this "might explain why, when he found out that the deal didn't have any money for a concrete border wall yesterday, he said he wasn't happy with it" — although he's typically fuzzy on the details, Meyers said. "Trump talks about the wall like he just ran into one."

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was a little fed up with the melodrama. "The one thing everybody's talking about — Trump signing or not signing the border wall deal — doesn't mean anything," he said. "We're supposed to care whether Trump won and Nancy lost, or Trump caved and Nancy's dancing in the end zone. But nothing — nothing — that has happened in government in 2019 has affected anyone."

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.

"We are celebrating — or supposed to be celebrating — that they're close to a deal to achieve the absolute minimum: having a government," Colbert said. "That is like celebrating that your child finally used the potty — on his first day of medical school. It's not impressive anymore." Everyone knows Trump will sign the bill, and "just like they all rehearsed, both sides are claiming victory," he said. Still, "even if Trump gets his funding, there's an unlikely obstacle on the border to his border obstacle, and it's butterflies — or as Mike Pence calls them, gay moths." Watch below. Peter Weber

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.