Last Night on Late Night

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon gape at the 27-hour I-95 snow-in, round up 'dumb' COVID comments

With some schools closing on only a few hours' notice due to surging COVID-19 numbers, many "parents need emergency child-care help now," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. "I am calling on the federal government to release our strategic reserve of mothers-in-law."

And "we've got an update from the opposite of schools, Florida," Colbert joked. "Omicron is hitting Florida hard. In fact, in two weeks, COVID cases rose there by 948 percent," but "Florida has a surefire bring their number of cases down, thanks to Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo." That solution? "Unwind" Florida's "testing psychology."  Well, "this no-testing approach isn't surprising," he added. "Ladapo has a long history of being what the Orlando Sentinel called a 'COVID crank' — COVID crank, also the most popular drug in Florida, because in Florida, even the meth has COVID."

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Fla.) also said "dumb stuff about COVID," telling right-wing radio listeners "interested in the vaccine to get a second opinion — from God," Colbert said. "I get it, God created our immune system — but He also created Ron Johnson, so He has been known to shank it." Johnson "raised the question: Does the Lord want you to have the vaccine?" he noted. "I don't know, but take Ron Johnson's advice and you might have a chance to ask God face to face."

If you do test positive for COVID, "right now there's probably no better place on the planet to quarantine than I-95 in Virginia, where cars have been trapped in a traffic jam for nearly 27 hours," Colbert said. "Holy Never Getting to Toledo!"

Yes, "because of a huge winter storm, a 50-mile stretch of I-95 in Virginia was shut down and drivers were stranded on the interstate for more than 24 hours," Jimmy Fallon said on The Tonight Show. "Meanwhile, there was a dad sitting there like, 'If I can just get over the one lane....' The only happy person was the cab driver whose fare got up to $14 million."

"This week Twitter permanently banned congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene after she kept posting misinformation, but just because she got kicked off of Twitter doesn't mean that she's not posting on other sites," Fallon said. The fake posts included a rant about the D.C. snowstorm and Jews using space lasers to control the weather.

The Daily Show's Desi Lydic, like Fallon, needled the CDC for its shifting COVID guidance.