Late-night TV: 'Is Donald Trump a racist? I'll let you decide yes for yourself'

Extract from The Guardian

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Late-night TV roundup

Comics, including Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert, discussed Trump’s disastrous press conference and his enraged tweets

‘No one gets accidentally caught up in a white supremacist rally,’ Seth Meyers said. Photograph: YouTube

Guardian staff

Friday 18 August 2017 01.34 AEST Last modified on Friday 18 August 2017 04.06 AEST

Late-night hosts on Wednesday discussed the details of Donald Trump’s press conference, where he defended many of those who marched in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a Confederate general.

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert said: “It was truly one for the ages – specifically 1939 to 1945.”

He started by going back to discuss Trump’s previous statement where he claimed to think all of the white nationalists marching were at fault. “You know it was the right thing to say because he hated saying it,” he said.
But then Tuesday happened. “When he was supposed to be taking about highway infrastructure, Donald Trump drove America’s moral leadership right through the guardrails,” he said.
Colbert commented: “Everywhere in this country, people were horrified: north, south, Republican, Democrat, top, bottom, sweet, sour – but you know who loved what Donald Trump said? Donald Trump.”
While the majority of people criticized his ranting, he had one defender in the shape of the former imperial wizard of the Klu Klux Klan. “David Duke complimenting your courage, that’s like Jeffrey Dahmer complimenting your cooking,” he said.
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host retold the brief history of Trump’s response since the Charlottesville violence. In his initial statement, where he said the problems came from “many sides”, he then refused to take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta, labelling him fake news.

“Oh my God, fake news again – get a new comeback,” he said. “Stop trying to make fetch happen.”

He then spoke about Trump’s increasingly deranged behavior on Twitter in the past week. “Twitter is tailor-made for Donald Trump,” he said. “You can say anything you want, you have to use small words, you can block people you don’t like and you can do it all on the toilet.”
Meyers joked: “He has 36 million followers – or, if you ask him, he has 300 million followers.”
On Tuesday, Trump claimed that there were “fine people” who were marching alongside Nazis. “No one gets accidentally caught up in a white supremacist rally,” he said.
Meyers then played footage from Friday of marchers chanting about Jews replacing them. “I don’t know everything about Robert E Lee, but I don’t think he was worried about being replaced by a Jewish general,” he said.
Part of Trump’s defense included him stating that the initial group actually had a permit. “Oh the Nazis had a permit well, fuck me I’m sorry!” Meyers said. “Also of course they had a permit, they’re Nazis. Nazis’ main thing is having your papers, that’s like the one thing they’re good at.”
He continued: “Is Donald Trump a racist? I’ll let you decide yes for yourself.” Meyers then doubled down: “He showed us again who he really is: a lying racist who’s desperate for praise.”

On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon also poked fun at Trump’s press conference. “This is him on vacation,” he said. “He can’t even get vacation right.”
Fallon then joked: “I’m starting to miss the old days when we were on the verge of nuclear war.”