Following Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden suspension this week after pressure from President Trump’s FCC chair and more, Seth Meyers made sure to suck up to the president on Thursday night. According to the NBC host, he’s actually never made fun of Trump once.
To kick off his “A Closer Look” segment, Meyers teased that he’d be discussing Trump’s crackdown on free speech in recent weeks. But, before he got into that, the comedian offered a disclaimer.
“And completely unrelated, I just want to say before we get started here, that I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump,” Meyers said, drawing massive laughs from the audience. “I’ve always believed he was — no, no no! — a visionary, an innovator, a great president and even better golfer.”
“And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI,” Meyers continued joking.
Anyone who is even a little familiar with Seth Meyers’ work knows that Trump is a regular target of the “Late Night” host’s ridicule and disgust (though he also made fun of former president Joe Biden when he was in office, too). But, Meyers swore that any previous clips of him bashing Trump definitely aren’t real.
“I have been told there’s some clips of me on the Internet making jokes about him from a few years back. Those are obviously deep fakes. I mean, come on, does that look like me?” he asked as an image of him on stage popped up. “That’s clearly teen Sheldon.”
As Meyers properly got into the “Closer Look” segment, he eventually did circle around to Trump’s regular promise of protecting free speech when he returned to office, playing a montage of clips of the president touting that “I’ve stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America.”
“Look, I think all of us can agree free speech is a good thing! No, not now, not today,” Meyers said, dismissing someone off-screen. “Because in order for a democracy to thrive — I said I don’t want to do it today. Stop waving your arms around. I don’t want to do it!”
“I’m sorry, I’m being told there’s a follow-up montage,” Meyers explained. “And historically, when we play a follow-up montage, it undercuts everything in the first montage. And you know, I’d just really like the first montage about free speech to be, like, true today.”
Of course, that second montage did play, and Meyers was forced to launch into the administration’s censorship of Jimmy Kimmel, before defending his fellow late night host wholeheartedly.
You can watch Seth Meyers’ full “A Closer Look” segment in the video above.
