Late night hosts joke darkly about gun-toting Santa, secret superspreader Trump
COVID-19's Omicron variant appears to be more transmissible but less severe than the Delta variant, and that may be because "it shares genetic code with the common cold," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. "This pandemic has gone on for so long, we're officially in the remix stage." Oh, and we're also "back at cruise ship COVID," he sighed. "What's next, a new season of Tiger King? There's what!?"
"The only thing spreading faster than Omicron is misinformation from conservatives," Colbert said, citing a tweet from Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Sen. Ron Johnson's (R-Wis.) claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci "overhyped" both COVID-19 and AIDS. He told Johnson where he could stick that comment.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
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.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Late Show also turned the gun-packing Santa story into song.
"In other toxic masculinity news, we're getting more details about the number of people who may have been infected by our former superspreader-in-chief," Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "Between the day he tested positive and the day he was hospitalized for COVID, Trump came into close contact with more than 500 people." Trump "took no precautions after testing positive, he didn't cancel events, he was maskless inside the White House and on Air Force One," Kimmel said. "You know, if you didn't know him better, it's almost like he doesn't care about others."
Seriously, Trump was "like the Johnny Appleseed of COVID," but we only know how wide his potential circle of contagion was because of a tell-all book by Trump loyalist Mark Meadows, Seth Meyers said on Late Night. "I like that Trump's aides won't talk to Congress, but if they get a book deal they'll tell the entire world the worst s--t they can possibly think of." Among a long series of asides, Meyers also recapped how "Republicans and Fox News are suggesting a new variant of the coronavirus is a liberal hoax," and you can watch that below.
-
Saving for a down payment on a house? Here is how and where to save.the explainer The first step of the homebuying process can be one of the hardest
-
Music reviews: Zach Bryan, Dry Cleaning, and Madison BeerFeature “With Heaven on Top,” “Secret Love,” and “Locket”
-
Book reviews: ‘The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives and Divides Us’ and ‘Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor’Feature The pursuit of ‘mattering’ and a historic, devastating family secret
-
EU and India clinch trade pact amid US tariff warSpeed Read The agreement will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
Maduro pleads not guilty in first US court hearingSpeed Read Deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to cocaine trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy
