Late night hosts are very excited about a Trump mute button, doubt it will fix the final debate

Late night hosts cheer Trump&#039;s mute button

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

last updated 22 October 2020

"The final presidential debate is just a few days away, and the organizers are trying to make sure it goes smoother than the first one," Jimmy Fallon said on Tuesday's Tonight Show. He wasn't convinced a mute button would tame President Trump, though. "If you mute Trump's mic, he'll just run across the stage and yell into Biden's," he said. So "it goes mute button, water spritzer, then lowering the podium into a hole in the ground," and if none of those work, the interrupter should get the helium voice. He demonstrated how that would work.

The mute button is needed because "at the last debate, Trump interrupted Biden and Chris Wallace — and this is true — 128 times," The Late Show's Stephen Colbert noted. "While we're at it, how about a fast-forward button, just zip straight to Nov. 3? Now, this mute button won't be operational for the entire debate," just during two-minute answer periods, and to stop Trump from walking over to Biden's microphone, "the debate commission is also putting him on a child leash."

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"Muting the mics, it's the same strategy my daughter's teacher uses for Zoom kindergarten," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "Would a mute button even work on Donald Trump? I feel like if you turn off his microphone, he'll just pull another one out of his hair or something. Emperor Palpa-tan is very hot about the mics, he phoned into Fox & Friends this morning to lash out at the debate commission. This is what he does: Before every debate, every election, every interview even, he announces that they're plotting against him. ... How many months after he loses do you think Fox & Friends just stops taking his calls?"

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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.