Conan O’Brien and James Corden on Donald Trump

Porn star Stormy Daniels is suing President Trump for defamation for something he said in a tweet. When they heard this, Muslims, African-Americans, gays, and Hillary Clinton said, “You can do that?” –Conan O’Brien

Trump skipped the correspondent’s dinner on Saturday night, and instead hosted a rally in Michigan. Trump said he’d rather be around people who loved him, so he went to Michigan and left behind the White House press corps and Melania. –James Corden

This morning, President Trump made a special phone call to his favorite television program, “Fox & Friends.” Trump and the hosts talked about lots of things, and at one point, he was asked to grade his presidency. Take a look at what he said. [Trump clip] “I would give myself an A-plus.” An A-plus! From where — Trump University?  –James Corden

Quote of the Day: James Corden on Donald Trump

It’s being reported that a former doorman at a Trump building in New York was paid $30,000 to keep quiet about a rumor that Trump fathered an illegitimate child with his housekeeper in the 1980s. A secret illegitimate child. I don’t believe it. Finally, something Trump didn’t want to put his name on.

It’s beginning to sound like Donald Trump spent most of the last 30 years trying to make America pregnant again. –James Corden

Quote of the Day: Seth Meyers On Generic vs. “Name Brand” Democrats Against Donald Trump

According to a new poll, a generic Democratic opponent would beat President Trump by 10 points in 2020 election. Yeah, the generics do great. It’s the name brands [shows photo of Hillary] who have trouble. –Seth Meyers

[Ten points is also the difference between how Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton did against Donald Trump in head to head polls. Democrats sure could have used that ten points they gave up by nominating Clinton for the general election.]

Bonus Quote

Trump claims the United States’ trade deal with China is unfair. Of course it is. The United States sends China high-quality American-made products, and in exchange China sends back the Donald J. Trump signature suit collection .–James Corden

SciFi Weekend: Star Trek Discovery; The Orville; Twin Peaks; Blade Runner; Sarah Jane Adventures Tenth Anniversary; Emmys By Network; Batman Takes A Knee

CBS has not released any screeners for Star Trek: Discovery, and has placed an embargo on reviews until the show airs. They did release the full title sequence today:

Despite the episode not being available, sites such as IO9 have posted guides like Everything You Need to Know About Star Trek: Discovery Before It Premieres based upon the information which has been released so far.

The first episode will air on CBS at 8:30 pm tonight, with the second episode following on their paid streaming service CBS All Access.  Season 1 will have fifteen episodes with the first eight episodes running September 24 through November 5. The season will return for the remaining episodes in January. CBS All Access is allowing one week free to check out the service. If you are undecided, consider waiting until later tomorrow, which will allow you to watch both the second episode this week and the third episode next week. Some people are thinking about waiting until towards the end, and then binging on each half of the season or the who season while only paying for one to two months.

Discovery will be available outside of the US and Canada on Netflix. I had contemplated using a VPN to stream the UK edition of Netflix, but Netflix has become very aggressive in blocking VPN’s.

A four-part comic will provide further backstory on the Klingons prior to the events of Discovery.

In preparation for tonight’s premiere, CBS arranged to have the U.S.S. Discovery fly above New York City. Video above. (Yes, there have been posts on line about how they staged this, but why ruin the fun?)

In unrelated Star Trek news, TrekMovie.com reports that Quentin Tarantino has expressed interest in directing a Star Trek movie.

The Orville has been difficult to characterize as it is neither straight drama or consistently humorous. While Star Trek: Discovery reportedly will be serialized, The Orville is basically stand-alone episodes heavily modeled after Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like classic Star Trek, The Orville has even made an attempt at looking at contemporary issues.

About A Girl received advanced publicity for tackling gender reassignment surgery. Just as the show has its limitations as both dramatic science fiction and as a parody, the handling of the controversial issue was also somewhat simplistic. Vox looked in more detail at how the issue was handled.

Of course we must keep in mind that Star Trek: The Next Generation was also weak through most of the first two seasons, until it ended the second season with the excellent cliffhanger, Best of Both Worlds. I’m hoping that Seth MacFarlane has the clout to keep the show alive to buy time for them to better figure out what to do with this series.

Kyle MacLachlan and Judi Dench brought the red room from Twin Peaks to The Late Late Show, frustrating host James Corden in the video above.

Wired has a look at Blade Runner 2049.

Bill Clinton is writing political fiction, just like Hillary. Bill is working on a novel with James Patterson entitled The President Is Missing. Hillary wrote a fictional account of the 2016 election in which Bernie Sanders was the villain and a character with her name was a progressive. Showtime has announced a deal to do a television adaptation of Bill’s book.

It is the tenth year anniversary of the release of The Sarah Jane Adventurers. To celebrate, the BBC is rebroadcasting three episodes and has an article posted entitled 5½ Reasons Why EVERYBODY should watch The Sarah Jane Adventures. From the article:

The show’s essential premise was simple. Take one former companion of the Doctor. Add some young sidekicks; season with familiar foes like Sontarans and the Slitheen and for good measure, throw in the Doctor himself for a couple of stories. Then stir them all together in two-part adventures where the planet’s in peril but our heroes still have time for a few one-liners and a group hug at the end.

Except, of course, it’s not as easy as that. SJA worked because it hit just the right blend of alien scares and human drama. The childless Sarah Jane gets a family. Her alien son learns what it means to be human. The cocksure Clyde Langer finds there’s more to this world than he ever imagined… Just like Doctor Who, it was a show that revelled in adventure but always found time to explore and celebrate its characters without patronising its audience.

The article noted appearances by both Matt Smith and David Tennant.

The Handmaid’s Tale was among the big winners at the Emmy Awards last week. I looked at the best political jokes from the awards ceremony earlier in the week. This included a video of the skit with Stephen Colbert and Jeffry Wright based upon Westworld. 

By now I’m sure everyone interested has already seen the full lists of winners and read plenty about the awards so I will not say much more here. I did find these lists interesting, showing the expected superiority of cable and streaming. Here is a list compiled by Deadline of those winning awards at last week’s ceremony:

HBO: 10
NBC: 6
Hulu: 5
Netflix: 4
FX: 2

The second list includes all those who won three or more awards, including the Creative Arts awards which were presented earlier:

HBO: 29
Netflix: 20
NBC: 15
Hulu: 10
ABC: 7
FX Networks: 6
Fox: 5
Adult Swim: 4
CBS: 4
A&E: 3
VH1: 3

Francesco Francavilla has tweeted a picture of Batman taking a knee, showing support for the NFL players who have been protesting racial injustice and police brutality by taking a knee when the National Anthem is played before the start of an NFL game. Donald Trump has demanded that the players be fired or suspended. This statement has been protested by players and owners, but now Trump also has to deal with Batman. Besides Batman, Trump is also opposed by the next best thing, Jim Harbaugh, who said, “No, I don’t agree with the president. That’s ridiculous. Check the Constitution.”

Update: Adding to responses from Michigan football heroes, Tom Brady said, “I certainly disagree with what he said. I thought it was just divisive.”

Late Night Comics Speculate On An Early End For The Trump Presidency

I’m picturing Mike Pence sitting in his office trying to decide when Trump has acted just crazy enough that he can invoke the 25th Amendment and be seen as a hero. There are certainly plenty of psychiatrists who would argue Trump is unfit to fulfill the duties of the presidency. I’m not sure what the odds are of Trump being removed, either under the 25th Amendment or impeachment, but humor writers have seen this as likely.

Earlier in the year I noted a sequence on The Last Man On Earth in which a plague killed off politicians going through the lines of succession. They started with President Pence, implying that one way or another Donald Trump was already gone. (The video at the link concludes with the death of President Betsy DeVos.)

Late night comedians have had several similar jokes this week:

Vice President Mike Pence denies he’s planning to run for president in 2020. He said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be president way before then.” –Conan O’Brien

Mike Pence is denying speculation that he wants to be elected president in 2020. Pence was like, “I think you mean re-elected president in 2020.” –Jimmy Fallon

According to The New York Times, Vice President Mike Pence is planning on running for president if Trump doesn’t run for a second term. But he issued a statement strongly denying the article, saying it was disgraceful, offensive to me, my family and our entire team. He said to suggest he is running for president in 2020 is laughable and absurd. Right, why would Mike Pence want to be president in 2020? He’s going to be president much, much sooner than that. –Jimmy Kimmel

Vice President Mike Pence is adamantly denying a New York Times article claiming that he has begun a secret campaign for a presidential run in 2020. He says he has even less interest in being president than Trump does, which is saying something. Pence is like, “This is ridiculous. I’m not focused on being president in 2020, I’m focused on being president after Trump is impeached sometime this year.” –James Corden

Meanwhile in today’s news, Congressional investigators now want to question Donald Trump’s personal secretary, Rhona Graff, in the Russia investigation. If either were still alive, Richard Nixon and Rosemary Woods might tell Donald Trump that bad things can happen after a president’s personal secretary is questioned by such a Congressional probe, even if the specifics were different.

Of course we would have a new set of problems if Mike Pence were to replace Donald Trup. Pence could not honestly say, as Gerald Ford once did, “our long national nightmare is over” should he become president. Hopefully, should Donald Trump be removed from office the Republican brand will be so damaged that Pence won’t be able to do much harm. We can also hope that whatever brings down Trump also brings down Pence. However, unless they are separate events and another Vice President is chosen, Paul Ryan would be next in line.

Joint Chiefs Ignoring Trump Transgender Ban As Twitter Not Part Of Chain Of Command

Why are Republicans so obsessed with other people’s genitals, who they have sex with, and which bathroom they use? The latest example was Donald Trump’s proclamation via Twitter that transgender individuals will not be allowed to serve in the military. Of course the Constitution does not provide for changes in policy via Tweets, and neither Congress nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff were prepared for this. Not surprisingly, they are insisting upon following the conventional change of command before making such changes. CNN reports:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, including chairman General Joseph Dunford, were not aware President Donald Trump planned to tweet a ban on transgender service members, three US defense officials told CNN — the latest indication that top military leaders across all four service branches were blindsided by the President’s announcement.

For now, Dunford has informed service members that there will be “no modifications to the current policy until the President’s direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidelines.”

“In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,” Dunford wrote in a memo to the military that was obtained by CNN. “As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions.”

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Thursday that, to date, he has not received “directives on implementation” for a ban and learned about the President’s decision through the media.

We will work through the implementation guidance when we get it and then we’ll move from there,” he added while speaking at the National Press Club.

Maybe next Donald Trump will Tweet that Obamacare has been repealed and leave it at that, satisfying himself with no actual changes affecting anyone else.

Trump Tweeted that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Conservatives have complained about the cost of surgery for transgender members of the military, although not all even undergo surgery. Military Times reports that the “Defense Department spends 10 times as much money on Viagra and other erectile dysfunction medications than it spends on healthcare services for transgender troops.”

USA Today also noted this, along with comparisons of the cost of transgender surgery to the cost of Donald Trump’s trips to Mar-A-Lago:

A report for the Pentagon last year found that transition-related care would cost between about $2.4 and $8.4 million per year — less than 0.14% of the military’s medical budget.

That’s roughly the cost of four of Trump’s trips to Mar-A-Lago, GQ noted, even using a conservative estimate of $2 million per trip. And it’s way less than the $84 million spent on Viagra and similar meds by the Department of Defense in 2014, as others also said.

With cost not providing a good justification for this policy change, late night comic James Cordin had another explanation:

At this point, it just seems like Trump wants to do the opposite of everything Obama did. He is like, “Oh, Obama pardoned a turkey on Thanksgiving? Well I’m going to slaughter a turkey with a chainsaw on the front lawn.”

Vogue noted the lack of Ivanka Trump’s influence on Donald Trump in an article entitled, Look, It’s Time to Collectively and Officially Give Up on Ivanka Trump. They think that there are people who still think that Ivanka Trump is of any value in stopping her father? Really?

Donald Trump Mocked For Claiming He Is Subject Of Greatest Witch Hunt In American History

Donald Trump, objecting to the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his administration, tweeted: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” The claim came after Robert Mueller was appointed to be special counsel after Trump fired James Comey. Comey is also saying that Trump was trying to influence his judgment about the Russia probe.

This resulted in responses from some of the late night comedians:

President Trump is having one heck of a week. The Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate ties between his campaign and Russia, which he did not like at all. But sources inside the White House say when he found out about it, he didn’t yell or scream. He told his staff, “We have nothing to hide.” He was calm. He punched Sean Spicer in the stomach a few times. Then this morning at 7:52 a.m. he got on Twitter and wrote: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” Even his witch hunts are the greatest in American history. –Jimmy Kimmel

It’s been a wild week for President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump’s connections to Russia. Robert Mueller will be the special counsel. And today, Trump reacted by saying, “No fair, why does that guy get to be called special?” I’m kidding; Trump reacted by tweeting, of course. This morning, Donald Trump tweeted that he is the victim of “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” The single greatest — even when he’s whining, Trump still has to be the greatest.–James Corden

Meanwhile, Trump started tweeting again. Today he criticized the Russia investigation, saying, “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” Then one guy was like, “Do you still want to see my birth certificate?” –Jimmy Fallon

President Trump today called the appointment of a special counsel to investigate his campaign’s ties to Russia “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.” Though it didn’t help his case much when he flew away on a broom. –Seth Meyers

But the best response came from The Washington Post, which reprinted this story:

Nixon, Aides Believe Hearing Is Witchhunt

By Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writers
July 21, 1973

President Nixon and his top aides believe that the Senate Watergate hearings are unfair and constitute a “political witchhunt,” according to White House sources.

Despite apparent bipartisan and public support for the hearings and the manner in which they are being conducted, the sources said that the President in the last weeks has expressed bitterness and deep hostility toward the two-month-old proceedings.

“The President,” one source said, “sees the hearings as an attempt to get Richard Nixon and do it just damn unfairly.” According to four separate sources, the hostility toward the hearings is also pervasive in the White House staff, especially among former assistants to H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, the deposed former top presidential aides…

We know how that “witchhunt” turned out.

Late Night Comics On Donald Trump’s Tax Plan

President Trump unveiled his new tax plan today. And it’s pretty much the same as his old plan: He’s not gonna pay them. –Seth Meyers

Big news out of Washington, D.C., just this afternoon, as the White House finally released Trump’s tax plan. That plan? Never release Trump’s taxes. –Stephen Colbert

After alluding to a big tax reform announcement earlier this week, the White House finally released their tax plan and it was only a one-page-long document with very little information. It was a one-page memo — even Rachel Maddow was like, “This is a huge disappointment.” –James Corden

The White House promised a big announcement. But keep in mind, even a one-page document looks very big in Donald Trump’s tiny hands. –James Corden

Trump Could Save Tens of Millions of Dollars in One Year Under His Proposed Tax Plan –No joke, actual headline from The New York Times

Late Night Comedians On Republicans & Internet Privacy

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to get rid of internet privacy rules. Members cast their vote, then immediately ran home to delete their browser histories. –Conan O’Brien

I guarantee you there is not one person, not one voter of any political stripe anywhere in America who asked for this. No one in America stood up in a town hall and said, ‘Sir, I demand you let somebody else make money off my shameful desires. Maybe blackmail me someday.’ –Stephen Colbert

Aren’t we passed this point now? Our phones are already spying on all of us. Today I just looked at a bowl of fruit and two minutes later my Facebook page was covered with ads for Banana Republic–James Corden

This bill has been passed by the House and the Senate and will now go to Trump for signing. And Trump says he is going to sign it, because remember, privacy only matters when we are talking about his tax returns. –James Corden

James Corden and Jimmy Kimmel On Ivanka Trump Getting White House Office

Ivanka Trump is getting an office in the West Wing despite previously stating she would not take a formal role in her father’s administration. The administration has said Ivanka is going to act as her father’s “eyes and ears,” which basically means she’s going to be walking around the White House saying, “I’m telling Dad!”

I’m glad Ivanka is going to be her father’s “eyes and ears.” Now all we need is for her to take over his mouth, and his tweeting thumb.–James Corden

***

Ivanka Trump is getting an office at the White House and she’s getting top-level security clearance. She will take a position in the White House where she’ll draw upon her 20 years of foreign and domestic policy experience that she gained selling sandals to Nordstrom.

Her role is that she will serve as her father’s “eyes and ears” at the White House. He doesn’t need that. He needs somebody to be his thumbs so he can stop tweeting.

Her office is on the second floor of the West Wing, not far from the Oval Office. I suspect they put her there so somebody can run and grab her in case her father decides to nuke anything. She might be the only one he’ll listen to.

Meanwhile, poor Tiffany Trump can’t even get the White House Wi-Fi password. –Jimmy Kimmel