Late-night hosts try to digest Trump asking for and actually pricing out an alligator-filled border moat
"I feel like I say this every night now, but today really was nuts," Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesday's Kimmel Live. For example, a New York Times report that "the president of the United States wanted to build a moat filled with alligators and snakes to eat families coming over the border" is somehow only "the second-biggest story of the day."
"Trump wanted a moat, he wanted snakes, he wanted alligators, wanted an electrified wall with spikes on top to keep immigrants out," Kimmel recounted. "He was said to be so frustrated by lack of progress on his stupid wall, at one point he shouted at everyone, he said, 'I ran on this issue! You guys are making me look like an idiot!' And they were like, 'Sorry, Mr. President. Tell us more about this moat filled with alligators and snakes.'" Trump denied requesting a "moot," he noted.
"Impeachment is becoming a real possibility — though, weirdly, not because of" the alligator-filled moat and immigrant-shooting, Samantha Bee said at Full Frontal (with fleeting expletives). "I'm not sure what is more disturbing: How elaborate the president's fantasies of murdering immigrants are, or that he got the idea from Melania's new bedroom design. At this point, I'm surprised his plan for separating families wasn't limb-by-limb. Also, 'prompting aides to seek a cost estimate,' and they did it? How do those calls go?"
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"Well, luckily, you don't have to imagine, because here at The Daily Show, we have the exclusive audio of that call," Trevor Noah joked, teeing up a recording. If a snake- and alligator-filled moat "sounds crazy," he added, "to be fair, it has been very effective at keeping him out of Melania's bedroom — that's probably where he got the idea. I mean, it's either that or because his top immigration adviser's an actual reptile."
Late Night's Seth Meyers compared Stephen Miller to the "zombie cab driver" from Ghostbusters. "Seriously, think about how insane this is — his aides actually had to go out and get a cost estimate for this plan. How do you even do that? Walk over the reptile section at PetSmart with a map of the border and be like, 'I don't know, the snake's like a foot long, the border's 2,000 miles — can I get a billion snakes?" Watch below. Peter Weber
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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.
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