Late night hosts joyfully celebrate their last night of Trump jokes, get ready to rib Joe Biden

Trump jokes
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Jimmy Kimmel Live)

"Well, guys, it is the last night of Donald Trump's presidency, and I don't know what tomorrow's gonna feel like," Jimmy Fallon said on Tuesday's Tonight Show. "Probably like that moment when they pull the nasal swab out of your nose." Seriously, "I think everyone's ready for Trump to move on," he said. "This afternoon, even the Lincoln Memorial stood up and helped Trump pack."

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The Late Late Show's James Corden was so happy about the imminent end of Trump jokes, he sang about it, channeling Les Misérables with a Broadway cast.

But Corden did have "one more day" of Trump jokes. Trump declining to meet with Biden or attend his inauguration is "a real break with tradition, but it will ring in a new tradition of me not caring where Trump is or what he's doing," he said, following up with a joke about Biden's advanced age. "The last time a president skipped the inauguration was in 1869 — and Joe Biden said he didn't approve of it back then, either."

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Late Night's Seth Meyers was on the same page: "President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be escorted into Wednesday's ceremony by drum lines from the alma maters. Harris, of course, attended Howard University, while Biden went to the University of Bedrock." That was a Flintstones joke. "We're gonna be fine in a Biden administration," he laughed. "In her farewell message yesterday, first lady Melania Trump said the last four years have been 'unforgettable.' 'Challenge accepted,' said Maker's Mark."

"It's the end of an error," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "It feels like the night before my wedding and my divorce, all rolled into one." He graded Trump on his campaign promises, predicted dark futures for him and his coterie, and wondered if being president was worth all the humiliation and disgrace for Trump. "For him it probably was," he concluded. But "this is not how Donald Trump wanted to go out. He was planning a procession and a flyover; instead he got an insurrection and a comb-over."

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"Tonight is the last show we'll do during the presidency of He Who Shall Remain Shameless," Stephen Colbert celebrated at The Late Show. "It has been interesting, in the same way that riding in a car going over a cliff is thought-provoking." Still, "throughout all the craziness and threats to everything we hold sacred, there was one hero who kept our country together, and that's you, the American people," he said. "In the end, democracy kicked his ass all the way back to Florida. And in this case, I, for one, will never be sick of winning." Peter Weber

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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.