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.

Quote of the Day: Jimmy Kimmel On Trump’s Low Approval Rating

President Trump’s approval rating has sunk to near-historic lows. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, his approval rating is down to 36 percent. If it gets down to the 20s he might start dating it.–Jimmy Kimmel

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

Oscars Feature Anti-Trump Jokes And Epic Mistake

The Oscars had many political jokes at the expense of Donald Trump, but will be most remembered for an epic mistake in announcing the wrong winner for Best Picture. The accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers has taken the blame for handing out a duplicate envelope with Emma Stone’s award for Best Actress, leading to La La Land being announced as the winner instead of Moonlight.  Donald Trump has blamed Hollywood’s obsessive focus on politics for the mistake.

Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue mocked Trump’s attacks on Meryl Streep following the Golden Globe Awards, with Kimmel jokingly referring to “her many uninspiring and overrated performances.” After also jokingly calling her “highly overrated,” he commented on her dress: “Nice dress, by the way. Is that an Ivanka?”

There were multiple references to diversity and immigrants throughout the awards. He introduced Cheryl Boone Isaacs, President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, by noting that she is a president who supports both the arts and sciences. Donald Trump’s use of Twitter was also the topic of jokes. Kimmel announced that, “Some of you will get to come up here on this stage tonight and give a speech that the president will tweet about in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow, and I think that’s pretty excellent if you ask me.” Later in the show, Kimmel tweeted Donald Trump.

The Academy Awards was also an easy target for those of us watching and tweeting from home. I posted a comment on Facebook prior to the announcement, with La La Land expected to be the winner: “If I were to decide to go into making movies, I would make movies about Hollywood. That way I would have a good shot at winning more awards than better movies.”


When La La Land was announced as the winner, I quickly posted: “Sure La La Land won more than it deserved. Wikileaks has revealed that they had Debbie Wasserman Schultz rig the Oscars.” I quickly had to respond on Facebook and Twitter when the correction was made. This included a correction that, “Apparently La La Land won the Alternative Oscar for Best Picture.”  I subsequently posted this explanation: “The explanation is that La La Land won the popular vote for Best Picture, but Moonlight won the official award in the Oscar Electoral College.”

By then the political comparisons were irresistible. I wrote, “Cast of La La Land is now blaming Vladimir Putin and James Comey for them not getting the Oscar.” Then I added that they also blamed Bernie supporters and Jill Stein voters, and that Jill Stein was raising money for a recount.

Late Night Comics On The Trump Press Conference

After yesterday’s bizarre press conference from Donald Trump, which has me now wondering if Trump has gotten to the talking to pictures on the White House walls stage yet, it was inevitable that the late night comics would concentrate on it. It would have been comedic malpractice if they had not. Here are the highlights:

Stephen Colbert changed his monologue to cover the press conference for obvious reasons.

Jimmy Kimmel played the highlights.

Seth Meyers took A Closer Look.

Jimmy Fallon gave his impression of the press conference for his cold open.

James Corden gave his break down of what occurred.

Or perhaps the funniest commentary of all comes from the right wing which took Trump seriously. For example, Michael Goodwin wrote, Sorry, media — this press conference played very differently with Trump’s supporters. 

The president proved once again that he is the greatest show on Earth. Lions and tigers and elephants are kid stuff next to his high wire act.

Next time, the White House ought to sell popcorn.

Amid feverish reports of chaos on his team and with Democrats fantasizing that Russia-gate is another Watergate, Trump took center stage to declare that reports of his demise are just more fake news…

He did it his way. Certainly no other president, and few politicians at any level in any time, would dare put on a show like that.

In front of cameras, and using the assembled press corps as props, he conducted a televised revival meeting to remind his supporters that he is still the man they elected. Ticking off a lengthy list of executive orders and other actions he has taken, he displayed serious fealty to his campaign promises.

Or there is the laughable claim from Rush LimbaughTrump Triumphs Over Press.

To be fair to conservatives, many do see through Trump. For example, David Brooks wrote, What a Failed Trump Administration Looks Like. He began:

I still have trouble seeing how the Trump administration survives a full term. Judging by his Thursday press conference, President Trump’s mental state is like a train that long ago left freewheeling and iconoclastic, has raced through indulgent, chaotic and unnerving, and is now careening past unhinged, unmoored and unglued…

Late Night Comics Post Trump Victory

colbert-trump

Trump doesn’t even believe in the existence of global warming, having tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” and calling global warming “very expensive BS.” Of course, “Very Expensive BS” is also the motto for Trump University.  –Stephen Colbert

(The New York Times reports that Donald Trump has agreed to settle the lawsuits over Trump University for $25 million.)

Trump is now receiving the classified daily intelligence briefing known as “the book,” making it the only book he owns that doesn’t have his picture on it. –Stephen Colbert

Experts say one of the biggest threats facing Donald Trump’s presidency could be North Korea. Evidently, Kim Jong Un is so incompetent and unstable, they’re worried Trump will give him a Cabinet post.  –Conan O’Brien

(Actually the problem isn’t so much that his top picks are incompetent as that they are racist and extremists.)

Donald Trump said the transition is going well and he has spoken to “many foreign leaders.” Then someone had to explain to Trump that Barack Obama is not a “foreign leader.” –Conan O’Brien

There are reports that Bill Clinton encouraged Donald Trump to run for president. When asked about it, Bill Clinton said, “It hasn’t been this tense around my house since … well, you know…”  –Conan O’Brien

While President Obama met with Donald Trump, Michelle Obama met privately with Melania Trump. Michelle said, “It’s a pleasure to welcome you and Donald to the White House.” Melania said, “It is a pleasure to welcome you and Donald to the White House.” –Jimmy Fallon

Hillary underperformed among women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and young voters. Really the only place she did very well was among pollsters. –Jimmy Kimmel

The Two Worst People In America Debate

trump-clinton-debate

The two worst people in America debated last night. Donald Trump was not intellectually capable of challenging Hillary Clinton’s long history of bad decisions and poor judgement throughout her career. Clinton was better prepared, and it didn’t take much to out-debate a buffoon like Trump. It is a shame that Jill Stein and Gary Johnson weren’t allowed to participate and provide a more meaningful challenge to Clinton.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama both recovered from poor debate performances to win reelection. Sanders did better against Clinton as the debates went on. Maybe Trump will do better in future debates, but I’m not sure that he has the ability to improve. He did start out looking like he had a chance, trying to look calm and presidential in the first half-hour. Watching Donald Trump trying to remain calm was like watching Bruce Banner, wondering when he would turn into the Hulk. It didn’t take long for Trump to repeatedly interrupt Clinton and look foolish making faces while she was speaking.

The debate was primarily a contest based upon such superficial matters, with limited consideration of the issues. Without Stein or Johnson present, nobody was going to look at the issues which neither major party candidate has any interest in, such as ending the state of perpetual warfare started after 9/11, or curtailing the surveillance state.

The initial polls, such as from CNN, showed Clinton to be the winner, but I doubt that many supporters of either candidate will change their minds based upon the debate. The debate might help Clinton with some undecided voters, but McClatchy found Clinton to lose some support among swing state voters in their focus group.

NPR has the full transcript with fact checking.

I also noticed a reversal in the red/blue partisan color coding at this debate. Donald Trump wore a blue suit while Hillary Clinton wore a red pantsuit. Next debate, Donald Trump should be required to wear the red pantsuit.

A farce like this provided a lot of material for the late night comedians. Jimmy Fallon had this to say: There were actually 1,000 people in the audience tonight and they were instructed not to applaud or cheer during the debate. As people watching were like, “What about sobbing? Can we quietly sob?”

Jimmy Kimmel summed up the entire election campaign: This was expected to be the most-watched debate ever. The ratings were expected to rank up with the finale of “Cheers,” the finale of “M.A.S.H.” Makes sense, in a way this election feels like the series finale of America.

The difference in the debate was preparation, as Stephen Colbert explained: Hillary was so prepared, my new nickname for her is Preparation H.

Below is the video of Colbert’s coverage of the debate:

Seth Meyers took A Closer Look at the debate. Video below. He even fact-checked Clinton: Ahead of tonight’s debate, Hillary Clinton posted an article on Twitter pointing out that no living president has endorsed Donald Trump. Nice try, Hillary, but it just so happens that Vladimir Putin is living.

Late Night Comics On Commander In Chief Forum

Yesterday I wrote about the Commander In Chief Forum. Above is Stephen Colbert’s take on the event, and below are some comments from the late night comics:

Last night they held, like, an appetizer debate — an “amuse douche,” if you will. It was called the Commander-in-Chief Forum. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump answered questions about national security. It was the first time the two of them were in the same room since Trump’s wedding. It took place right here in New York on the aircraft carrier Intrepid. Once the two of them were on board, a lot of people were tempted to cut it loose and let it drift out to sea. –Stephen Colbert

Jimmy Kimmel

The one guy Donald Trump has nothing bad to say about is Vladimir Putin. Maybe he is afraid Putin will cut off his supply of wives.–Jimmy Kimmel

Last night was NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump gave live back-to-back interviews about national security, and the candidates decided who would go first with a coin toss. But there was an awkward moment when Trump saw the coin, grabbed it, and put it in his pocket. “So what? I didn’t see a coin, what coin, what are you talking about?” In all seriousness Donald Trump called heads, but just in case he lost he also called the whole thing rigged. –James Corden

Elizabeth Warren Cheers Bernie Sanders On As He Ties Clinton In Latest Poll

Bernie-Sanders-Jimmy-Kimmel

Elizabeth Warren is not willing to make an endorsement yet in the Democratic primary battle, but she is “cheering Bernie on” as she attacks Donald Trump. AP reports:

On Thursday, when asked if Bernie Sanders should drop out of the race, Warren praised the Democratic senator from Vermont.

Sanders has echoed Warren’s criticism of Wall Street and rising student load debt more than any other candidate.

‘‘He’s out there. He fights from the heart. This is who Bernie is,’’ Warren said. ‘‘He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general so I’m still cheering Bernie on.’’

Warren declined to say which candidate she voted for in the Massachusetts primary. She said she plans to make an endorsement, but not yet.

Perhaps the cheering is helping. Bloomberg has a new poll out showing Sanders tied with Clinton, and Sanders continues to be the stronger general election candidate in match-ups against Republicans:

Even after more than two dozen primaries and caucuses in which Clinton’s amassed a commanding lead in votes and in delegates needed to win the nomination, a Bloomberg Politics national poll found that Sanders is the first choice of 49 percent of those who have voted or plan to vote in this year’s Democratic contests, while the former secretary of state is preferred by 48 percent…

The survey also signaled some trouble for Clinton in holding on to Sanders supporters in November. In general-election match-ups, Sanders holds a 24-point edge over Donald Trump, a 12-point lead over Ted Cruz, and a 4-point advantage over John Kasich among likely general-election voters. Clinton, by contrast, trails Kasich by 4 percentage points. She would carry a sizable lead into a contest against Cruz, where she holds a 9-point advantage, and Trump, whom she beats by 18 points.

There are additional media reports which question if Sanders supporters will back Clinton. With Sanders campaigning out west, the Times of San Diego has run a story under the headline, San Diegans Rally for Bernie, Warn Hillary: Don’t Count on Us. It is also looking like topless women might be a new feature of Sanders rallies.

Sanders also made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He discussed the terrorist attack in Brussels. He once again distinguished himself from Clinton, Trump, and Cruz in stressing the importance of respecting the  Constitution. He had this to say about Donald Trump:

At the end of the day, we cannot allow the Trumps of the world to use these incidents to attack all of the Muslim people in the world. It is unfair. To imply that because somebody is a Muslim, they are a terrorist, that is an outrageous statement. Equally so when he talks about Mexicans coming over the border as rapists and criminals. That is not what this country is about, and we don’t need, in my view, a candidate for president hurling these types of insults.

Sanders also talked more about Donald Trump, legalization of marijuana, Flint, and campaign finance reform in the segment above. Regarding climate change, Sanders said:

If you’re going to run for president, you need many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m on the Senate environmental committee. I’ve talked to scientists all over the world. Climate change is real; it’s caused by human activity. And yet you don’t have one Republican candidate prepared to say that. The reason for it is that the day they say it, their campaign funding is cut by the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry.

Quote of the Day: Jimmy Kimmel & James Corden on Donald Trump

Jimmy Kimmel

Mitt Romney this morning made a televised speech in which he went all in after Donald Trump. He called him a phony and a fraud. He said he’s playing the American public for suckers. I haven’t seen Mitt this fired up since that time he dripped mayonnaise on a new pair of chambray Dockers.

If Mitt Romney is the big gun the Republicans sent in to stop Trump, they’re in a lot of trouble. It’s like sending a meter maid in to break up a prison riot.  –Jimmy Kimmel

Bonus Quote:

An analysis of Google shows that searches related to the phrase “How can I move to Canada” spiked last night about 350 percent. Americans always threaten to move to Canada when a reality show host endorsed by the KKK becomes the Republican nominee. –James Corden