Late night hosts also hold Mark Meadows in contempt

published 16 December 2021

"In Washington, the House voted to hold former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate the Jan. 6 panel," Jimmy Fallon said on Wednesday's Tonight Show. "The consequences are severe — Meadows could be sentenced to a year in prison, or even worse, another month working for Trump. Of course Meadows needs a good lawyer, so the first thing he did is pull up Rudy Giuliani's number and delete it."

Before he "ghosted" the committee, Meadows turned over thousands of pages of documents, including text messages with Fox News hosts and Donald Trump Jr., but also "something especially scary," Samantha Bee said on Full Frontal. "Meadows' PowerPoint presentation, which made it into the White House, was filled with extreme plans to overturn the election." Look, Meadows is neck-deep in this plot, "and at this point, it's clear there's only one way to really get through to him," she said — and yes, her "very important message" was delivered via PowerPoint.

"The House voted to hold Meadows in criminal contempt," but "the rest of us can just keep holding him in regular contempt," Stephen Colbert joked at The Late Show. But it's not just Meadows, "the whole Republican caucus is an accessory to this coup. And we recently got more evidence of that in the form of text messages to Mark Meadows" from GOP lawmakers. The authors of the more damning texts have not yet been disclosed, he added, but "they have the ring of unfiltered truth, because they were taken from Mark Meadows' two personal phones — and nothing says innocent like a second cellphone. "

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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.