Late-night hosts talked Donald Trump’s cupboard of billionaire donors and the Home ethics committee stalemate over an investigation into Matt Gaetz.
Seth Meyers
On Wednesday’s Late Night time, Seth Meyers supplied a dire pronouncement on the state of American politics. “Our political system is dominated by billionaires. Either side are captive to rich pursuits,” he mentioned. “It must be famous that Kamala Harris had loads of billionaires’ help of her personal. However rich elites, together with the richest man alive, performed an particularly unprecedented position in getting Trump elected. And he’s repaying them by placing them straight into his authorities.”
Trump has already nominated quite a few billionaires into his cupboard, together with transition adviser and billionaire donor Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary; Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the brand new “Division of Authorities Effectivity”; and Linda McMahon will likely be secretary of training. “What does a former head of a wrestling league find out about training?” Meyers puzzled. “Oh no, are lecturers gonna open class now making sweaty threats right into a microphone?
“So billionaires are successfully working the federal government now, and even the cupboard picks who aren’t billionaires themselves have billionaires backing them,” he defined. On Tuesday, Musk took to X, the platform previously often called Twitter that he now owns, to help Trump’s embattled decide for legal professional common, Matt Gaetz. He wrote: “Matt Gaetz has 3 important property which can be wanted for the AG position: a giant mind, a backbone of metal and an axe to grind.”
“He’s bought a giant mind, he’s bought a backbone of metal and his eyes will likely be large open as a result of he can’t shut them after all of the Botox,” Meyers joked, referring to the Florida congressman’s obvious cosmetic surgery.
“Additionally, when you’re the nation’s high regulation enforcement officer, you’re not alleged to have an axe to grind,” he added. “You wouldn’t go to a health care provider whose spouse left him for you.
“Musk and the opposite billionaires need to use authorities as a instrument to crush their enemies, they usually need to hole out regulatory businesses as a result of these businesses are the one constraints on their energy,” he concluded.
Jimmy Kimmel
In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel lamented how the Home ethics committee reached an deadlock on whether or not to launch the report investigating Gaetz’s alleged sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, particular favors to associates and obstruction of justice. “Principally, all the identical stuff that gained Trump the election this time,” Kimmel quipped.
In accordance with a report, the committee has information of 27 Venmo funds by Gaetz to 2 ladies for intercourse, totaling over $10,000. “If you need to fear about deleting your browser historical past and your Venmo transaction historical past each night time, you in all probability shouldn’t be legal professional common of the USA,” Kimmel mused.
“Each Republican on the Home committee, each member of the ‘regulation and order’, ‘household values’ get together, voted towards releasing their findings,” he added. “Similar to you do with any ethics report that utterly exonerates somebody.”
Releasing the report would require “one Republican – just one – to vote with the Democratic members of the committee,” mentioned Kimmel. “In a celebration stuffed with Minions, we now have to hope that one in every of them is a Stuart,” he continued, referring to the Despicable Me character.
Trump is reportedly optimistic about Gaetz’s beleaguered nomination prospects. “But when Gaetz needs sufficient votes to get confirmed within the Senate, he’s bought quite a lot of work to do,” mentioned Kimmel. “Not on his face – he’s already carried out an excessive amount of on that. It seems to be like his brow bought Zamboni-ed or one thing. Perhaps as an alternative of legal professional common, he could possibly be our plastic surgeon common?”
Stephen Colbert
And on The Late Present, Stephen Colbert additionally appeared into the Home stalemate over methods to deal with the Gaetz investigation. The Home ethics committee consists of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, so going into the vote over whether or not to launch the report, “all of the ethics committee wanted was one Republican with ethics”, Colbert quipped.
In the long run, all the Republicans voted to guard Gaetz. “So the vote went alongside strict get together traces,” mentioned Colbert. “And when Gaetz heard the phrases ‘get together traces’, he confirmed up with a rolled-up hundred-dollar invoice.
“What I need to know is: what the hell is it that they don’t need us to see?” he puzzled. “As a result of the stuff we already know is so horrible that if Gaetz ever strikes to a brand new neighborhood, he’s going to need to introduce himself door-to-door.”
Colbert recapped what we already know: that the lawyer representing two ladies testified that Gaetz paid greater than $10,000 for intercourse, and that one noticed him having intercourse with a 17-year-old, beneath the age of consent in Florida. The ladies additionally supplied investigators with quite a few photographs of their time with Gaetz.
In different information, “it’s a day that ends in a Y, so which means Donald Trump has made one more cupboard decide that makes you go, ‘why?’” mentioned Colbert. As of Wednesday, Trump’s new nominee for secretary of training is the previous WWE CEO Linda McMahon.
McMahon has no instructing background, “however you understand what they are saying,” mentioned Colbert. “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, get a job within the Trump administration.”
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