Seth Meyers is 0 for 2 on movie references during “A Closer Look” this week, and he knows it. On Wednesday night, the NBC host even took a moment to roast himself for it.
The moment came as Meyers looked back on the many, many times President Trump promised to end “forever” wars and expel warmongers, before he launched attacks on Iran this week, and immediately began referring to it as war. One particular moment Meyers was fond of happened in 2025, when Trump lamented that “Sometimes we don’t fight to win. You know, we’ll stay around the country for 15 years, just bomb the hell out of everybody.”
“My God, he’s so philosophical. I like when Trump starts sounding like one of Wooderson’s stoned friends in ‘Dazed and Confused,’” Meyers joked, before doing his own impression.
But, as he did that impression, he was largely met with silence, prompting the “Late Night” host to start mocking himself (while still doing his Trump impression).
“Once again, Seth threw in a reference to a movie that he thought would work, and it didn’t really land,” he joked, earning a big laugh from the audience. “Seth’s really over his skis this week, dialing it back. He thinks everybody remembers the 90s, but they don’t!”
“Struck out with a ‘Dave’ reference on Monday, and now he’s back on Wednesday, eating s–t with ‘Dazed and Confused.’ And he was so — you should have seen him earlier, was so confident.”
Indeed, Meyers did strike out with a reference to the 1993 film “Dave,” starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver during Monday’s “A Closer Look,” and he called it out then too. That particular flop came as Meyers made fun of Trump for killing his top choices to run Iran in the military strikes he executed on Iran.
“This does strike me as a job you don’t want to just get thrust into. It’s a country of 90 million people, not a Hollywood movie. ‘We’re hoping for a ‘Dave’ situation where a Kevin Klein-type steps in to fill the void,’” Meyers joked at the time, once again met with silence.
“‘Was Dave too dated a reference? You got to pin that one on Seth. It wasn’t in the original draft, and Seth said ‘They’ll all remember Dave,’ and now he’s the one — oh, I wouldn’t want to be Seth Meyers right now.’”
You can watch Seth Meyers’ full “A Closer Look” in the video above.
