Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Kimmel also crave a return to normal, just not Trump-style

Late night hosts on reopening the economy
(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night)

"We've now surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases and 60,000 deaths in the span of about two months," Seth Meyers noted on Thursday's Late Night. "That's a staggering, heartbreaking number. Or, as Donald Trump put it at the end of his press conference on Monday: Job well done!" In reality, he said, thanks to Trump's inaction, "the country is broken down into districts, we're facing meat shortages, and the Postal Service is warning it could collapse — we're like a week away from Trump announcing the first annual Hunger Games."

It isn't just Trump doing the happy talk. Jared Kushner called the federal response a "success story" on Wednesday, then chided "the eternal lockdown crowd" making "jokes on late-night television." Meyers thanked Kushner for watching and assured him late-night hosts just want "a plan for reopening things safely. You think I don't want things to open up? I used to do a show with multiple shirts and zero wasps! I worked in a building that had 50 lunch options!"

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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.