Late night hosts pity Trump's sad Greta Thunberg tantrum

"Last night, I complemented the president, I commended him for not throwing a tantrum after 16-year-old Greta Thunberg was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine," Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday's Kimmel Live. "We all knew he wanted to be Person of the Year, we all knew it bothered him. But he showed uncharacteristic restraint" — until, less than 24 hours later, he mocked Thunberg on Twitter.

It's bad enough that "a sweaty old man" like President Trump told Thunberg to "chill" at the movies, but "the fact that Greta Thunberg is a teenager makes this especially insane," Kimmel said. It was only last Tuesday that "everyone at the White House had a full-blown hissy fit because a witness at Trump's impeachment hearing had the gall to say the word 'Barron' in a completely benign fashion." Melania Trump said nothing this time, but Thunberg turned the tables by incorporating his mockery into her Twitter bio, he noted. "Trump hasn't been roasted that thoroughly since the last time he locked himself in his tanning bed."

YouTube

Watch On

Even if teens still "chilled" at movie theaters, Stephen Colbert said at The Late Show, "Thunberg is from Sweden, so a 'good old fashioned movie' there is probably something called The Sawmaker's Widow that's just four hours of Max von Sydow staring at a broken clock. But since Thunberg is Swedish, let me put this in culturally appropriate terms: Mr. President, go Fjuk yourself." (Fjuk is an island in Sweden, he explained, maybe to the CBS censors.)

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

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.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

YouTube

Watch On

"Come on, man, the president of the United States is on Twitter, bullying a teenage girl?" Trevor Noah said at The Daily Show. "Just try to imagine any other president doing something like this." (He tried FDR mocking Shirley Temple.) But Thunberg's clap-back was "phenomenal," he said, "and I'm not surprised: You know, she's 16, so she's used to handling temper tantrums from immature boys."

But Trump's "so cartoonishly villainous," he just "had to pay $2 million because he stole money from his own charity," Noah said, and the rotten apples didn't fall far from the tree. Don Jr., for example, recently killed an endangered sheep in Mongolia. "Who is this guy?" he asked. "He needed to use a laser site at night to take down a sheep? This is an animal so peaceful, literally just thinking about them makes us fall asleep." Watch below. Peter Weber

YouTube

Watch On