Late night hosts are mostly confused by Trump's closing message

Late night hosts on the final election messages

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, The Tonight Show, Late Night)

published 30 October 2020

"Folks, the presidential election is only five days away," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show. "COVID-19 is the biggest issue in this election, next to daddy issues, and COVID cases exploding all over the country," he said. "As the campaign draws to a close, [President] Trump and [Joe] Biden are pushing opposing pandemic strategies. Biden is pushing viral containment while Trump is pushing your grandma into traffic."

"Strangely, Trump's blatant disregard for human life seems to be hurting him with a key demographic, humans," Colbert said. It's so bad for Trump, "Joe could get Texas," he said, but more likely, "the electoral map could come down to Pennsylvania, which is why Trump is making a huge effort to get out the vote there — I'm sorry, I misread that — throw out the vote there."

"Trump is busy on the campaign trail," and "at one of his rallies, he tried to describe what would happen if Joe Biden wins," Jimmy Fallon said at The Tonight Show. It was ... implausible. "No Christmas? Does Trump think he's running against Biden or the Grinch?" he asked. "According to Trump, electing Biden will lead to riots in the streets, an economy in the tank, and no holidays — but also he's a sleepy politician who can't get anything done."

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"The Trump campaign knows they can't campaign against Joe Biden, so they've decided instead to campaign against reality," Seth Meyers said at Late Night. "In their warped minds," Trump and his allies think "whining about mean tweets and trying to get people fired" is "more important than the deadly pandemic that's killed 227,000 Americans," he added. "Of course, none of this is working with voters, which is why Trump is way down in the polls."

"That's right, Joe Biden wants to murder Santa Claus, kids," Jimmy Kimmel deadpanned at Kimmel Live. "This is the message Team Trump seems to be going with down the stretch." You know, he added, "Trump used to love doing these rallies. He would go and people would cheer, but now that he's losing and still has to go to these towns he hates, he's not doing a very good job of hiding his disdain."

The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper visited perhaps his last Trump rally ever, in Pennsylvania, and he found the audience oddly "subdued" — and not quite clear on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Watch his dispatch 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.