Late night hosts have complicated emotions about John Bolton's Trump bombshells, but not Aunt Jemima

late night hosts on John Bolton&#039;s book

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Show, The Daily Show)

last updated 18 June 2020

President Trump's attempts to block former National Security Adviser John Bolton's tell-all from hitting shelves "ain't gonna work," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show, holding up his own advance copy, one of hundreds. Still, he said, "you can see why Trump is so desperate to kill this book. Because this afternoon, several newspapers published excerpts, and — I can't believe I'm saying this — it's worse that even I imagined." He ran through some of Bolton's revelations, rising from "amoral idiocy" to "just downright evil." Still, he said, "I doubt Trump would ever 'execute' a journalist. He'd ask Jared to have his Saudi friends do it."

YouTube

Watch On

"Bolton writes that Trump said journalists should be executed, he didn't know Britain was a nuclear power, he asked if Finland was part of Russia, he begged the Chinese to help him with the election," Jimmy Kimmel recapped. "Could you imagine the president asking his advisers if Finland is part of Russia? He's the president of the United States! This is like your mechanic asking if the muffler is part of the glove compartment."

"Trump is, in his own unique way, breathtakingly dumb," Late Night's Seth Meyers said, primarily referring to Trump's administration-wide "coronavirus coverup." And don't cry for Bolton, who "courageously hid behind his mustache rather than testify in Trump's impeachment trial," he said. "There's no one — no one — to root for in a Trump versus Bolton fight. They're both megalomaniac sociopaths looking out for themselves. It's a real Alien vs. Predator, except all you need to do to stop Alien Trump is install a ramp."

Subscribe to 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.

"That's right, after 130 years, it is officially time to pour one out for Aunt Jemima," Trevor Noah said at The Daily Show, running through the brand's racist history, with early ads "so racist, Trump's probably gonna appoint one to attorney general." Bolton's book, meanwhile, is now No. 1 on Amazon, thanks to Trump's amazingly "shortsighted" suppression efforts, he noted, but "the stuff that's been leaking out of this book is pretty wild." 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.