American late-night talk show hosts were solemn and enraged on Wednesday night after a wild mob of pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol complex in Washington DC, as Congress members convened to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
On ABC’s popular “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” host Jimmy Kimmel welcomed viewers to the “treason finale of the Donald Trump era.”
Stating that the Capitol was overrun with “MAGA-hatters in all manner of crazy costumes,” he noted that the images the country was witnessing were beyond imagination and something he never thought he would witness in his lifetime.
“It was like a psychotic ‘Price is Right’ audience forcibly taking control of the Plinko wheel,” he joked.
Seth Meyers of NBC’s “Late Night” spoke directly to the audience, in a raw, honest monologue that conveyed his disbelief.
“I swear we were writing jokes today, and then…” Meyers started, moving on to describing how aghast he and his crew of writers were at the “surreal and horrifying scenes of armed insurrection.” Calling it a “sequence of events unseen in the modern history of this nation,” he added the images should be “seared” in Americans’ “collective consciousness” for the rest of their lives.
A special live version of CBS’ “The Late Show” hosted by Stephen Colbert aired on Wednesday.
“There are some dark subjects that we talk about on the show occasionally, but I’ve rarely been as upset as I am tonight,” Colbert said.
“Hey, Republicans, who supported this president… have you had enough?” he asked, adding “Who could’ve seen this coming? Everyone. Even dummies like me.”
Jimmy Fallon, the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” noted that “these are difficult times to do an entertainment show.”
“These are difficult times to do any show,” Fallon said. “But these are also times when we need each other the most.”
He added that it was important for him to reassure his viewers that America, as a nation, was better than this. To him, what happened in the afternoon of January 6 was ‘terrorism’, not ‘patriotism’.
