Seth Meyers warns Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham that future history textbooks won't treat them kindly

An image showing photos of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham.
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Late Night with Seth Meyers)

President Trump was in his element Wednesday night, Seth Meyers said on Thursday's Late Night, as he whipped the crowd at his North Carolina rally into a "racist frenzy" by going after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Meyers said Trump has spent the last few days slandering Omar, who came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee and is a naturalized citizen, and stood by as the audience began chanting, "Send her back!" This was "one of the most vile spectacles in modern political history," Meyers declared, "a defining moment for our country, and any Republican who doesn't immediately condemn it should imagine how it will look in a history textbook years from now, because there will absolutely be a section on this and it will absolutely name everyone complicit in it and they will absolutely use the worst photo of you they can possibly find."

To prove it, Meyers put up a graphic showing a photo of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that made it appear as though his face was melting into a puddle of chins, and another of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) looking like a hissing bobcat out for revenge.

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When asked by reporters on Thursday about the chant, Trump said he tried to shut it down, but Meyers was prepared with a clip showing Trump just standing there, looking around the arena. "That's not how you stop a chant," he said. "That's how you wait in line at the deli for them to call your number." This was an "obvious lie," but that's the "con at the heart of Trump's politics. He whips his base into a racist frenzy and claims Omar is the one who looks down on hard-working Americans, when in reality he's the one plundering the government, doling out trillions in tax cuts to his rich buddies, and partying it up all night because he doesn't work on Thursdays." Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.