To end his first full week back since his show’s extended hiatus, Seth Meyers delivered a new edition of “A Closer Look” on Thursday’s episode of “Late Night.” And as usual, the subject was Trump — with a specific focus on Trump’s flailing around the coronavirus pandemic, and a “racist” and “absurd” comment he made this week.
“The president shook up his flailing campaign as the coronavirus outbreak spirals further out of control, and now he’s honing in on two key reelection strategies: less testing and more racism,” Meyers said to open the “A Closer Look” segment.
“Given that the country is currently on fire after a once-in-a-century cataclysm inflamed by the President’s cruelty and incompetence, he’s had some trouble coming up with a solid reelection message. It’s never a great sign when your own campaign manager is advertising face masks with your name on them. ‘Each breath you take could be the one that kills you. Four more years?’ Which is why he called a fake press conference on Tuesday to spin his wheels and try out yet another deranged campaign message: the Democrats want to abolish everything.”
“Late Night” then proceeded to play a montage of clips of Trump saying various things he thinks the Democrats want to abolish. Such as “immigration detention,” “immigration enforcement,” “Law enforcement as we know it,” “death penalty,” “prisons, I guess,” “charter schools,” “educational standards,” and “the suburbs.”
“First of all, most that sounds awesome. All you’re doing is listing a bunch of things people hate and claiming the Democrats will get rid of them,” Meyers said as he slipped into his Trump impression. “‘Democrats want to abolish telemarketers, the DMV, gate crashing at the airport, and in-laws.’
Then Meyers started to hone in on specific items Trump had mentioned.
“I love how transparent he is that he’s just making stuff up when he says they want to abolish prisons ‘I guess.’ Sounds like your dad describing a movie he saw on TNT last night as he was falling asleep,” Meyers quipped. “‘They were on a boat I guess, and Tom Hanks was in it I think, and there was just a disagreement as to who was the captain.’”
To end this thread, Meyers got very specific and dropped some knowledge.
“Third, when Trump said Democrats want to abolish the suburbs, he was talking about a program implemented by the Obama administration to desegregate the suburbs by enforcing the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which outlawed discrimination and racial segregation in housing. So not only was Trump’s lie racist it was absurd,” Meyers said.
“It makes it sound like Democrats are trying to ban strip malls and cul-de-sacs. ‘They want to take away your Hot Topics and your Auntie Anne’s, but we’re not going to let that happen, folks.’
“I mean without suburbs who will borrow our pruning shears and not return them? Where will our adorable space aliens land and befriend our children? Where will our fathers painstakingly restore classic cars in a vain and desperate attempt to recapture their youth. This is all Trump has left: racist grievance politics.”
You can watch the full “A Closer Look” segment from Thursday’s episode of “Late Night With Seth Meyers” in the video embedded at the top of this article, or on YouTube right here.