TV

Sad Deportation Jokes And Lots Of Swearing: How The Talk Shows Responded To A Trump Win

(Samantha Bee's was the best of the bunch.)

by Sinead Stubbins  10 November 2016

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Well, it happened! Donald Trump is now the president. This is how America’s talk show hosts have reacted to the election of the man they have been warning the public about and/or laughing at, for at least a year.

Just Like Brexit, The US Election Shows A Massive Generational Divide Amongst Voters

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The Ellen Show

Ellen’s approach was one of unity, which may make some feel like their genuine fears about a Trump presidency are being overlooked, but Ellen’s brand is to be positive about these things. “If you take away the labels, you realise that we’re far more alike than we are different,” she asserted and then said that everyone is the same because we’ve all fallen asleep watching Netflix, or something.

Then she showed some videos of unlikely animals being friends. Hm.

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The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert did a live show last night and was obviously deeply shaken when Trump started to win. It may be a day old now, but Colbert’s shock speaks to the swath of white liberals and media pundits who were almost certain that Clinton was going to win.

“If Trump wins, how about bursting into tears and screaming ‘fuck’ for the next 45 minutes?” he said to his stunned guests.

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The Daily Show

Trevor Noah was very calm and solemn both on the live election show and on today’s show, and seemed politely incredulous that this had even happened.

“You can be dejected and you can be sad, but I will say this: don’t let it turn into fear,” he said last night.

Today Noah just seemed baffled by America’s system of voting which, same. “So once again, Donald Trump benefits from a bullshit college,” he said.

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Full Frontal With Samantha Bee

Samantha Bee was so happy that the election was over! She was hugging Larry Wilmore! She high-fived Jon Stewart! She double high-fived Stephen Colbert! Then Trump won. “How did we get this so spectacularly wrong?” she asked. “The media, the pundits, the Keepin’ It 1600 nerds, us?”

“The Caucasian nation showed up in droves to vote for Trump, so I don’t want to hear a goddamn word about black voter turnout. How many times do we expect black people to build our country for us?”

Bee’s monologue was brilliant, even more so given how sombre her staff’s mood was. “Believe it or not, this is not the best night to be on the most diverse show in late night — they are not in a very jokey mood,” she said of the show’s writers.

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Conan

Conan O’Brien tried to be optimistic and took a “America has been through worse!” line of reasoning and explained that at least America isn’t as bad as other countries (?). “We get to choose who’s going to ruin our country,” he said.

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Late Night With Seth Meyers

“Well! That was a real grab in the pussy,” Meyers said today. Meyers catalogued how wrong he had been about the trajectory of Trump’s success and talked through his own feelings about the election of “this steak salesman”.

The monologue was sweet and sad. “I really feel for the parent of kids this morning, especially parents with daughters because a lot of them — like me — probably thought that Hillary would be our first woman president,” he said. “But that does mean that someone’s daughter is out there right now who will one day have that title.”