Silke Jasso
The so-called mainstream media, so often called “Fake News” and the “enemy of the American People” by President Donald Trump, gave him high marks for his first speech to Congress on Monday night. Trump struck a more measured tone, and the media was ready to congratulate him for it.
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Seth Meyers, however, isn’t the media. He’s a late-night comedian, and he’s also been a fierce critic of Trump. And nothing changed when it was Meyers’ turn to dissect the speech — and the media’s fawning.
Meyers told his audience during his Closer Look segment “not to get fooled again.”
“It was a restrained performance, which means the media once again salivated over the possibility of a more presidential Trump,” he said.
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Meyers played clips of the speech and offered scathing commentary of political analysts complimenting Trump. MSNBC’s Brian Williams said it was Trump’s “most speech-like speech,” and Fox News’ Chris Wallace said Trump “became the president of the United States” during that speech.
“I bet there are some Muslims and undocumented immigrants that would tell you he became president in f—–g January,” Meyers said. “Guys, seriously, do you have amnesia?”
The former “Saturday Night Live” writer said the Trump has spent the last year and half lowering the bar when it comes to public speaking, and noted that he “managed to sustain a muted tone that for any other politician would be considered unremarkable and even a little boring was itself seen as a huge victory.”
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“As usual, the media obsessed over their favorite topic: his tone,” Meyers said. “There are still many in the media who are desperate to treat him like any other president.”
And of course, Meyers was having none of the notion that Trump’s speech helped to make him like any other “normal” president.
“Yes, like a pair of pants, Trump tried on normal and asked America, ‘does this make my ass look big?'” he said.
Meyers also got digs in at the cable networks covering the big speech. He said of CNN, Trump’s least favorite network, “And you could tell it was a momentous occasion because as the speech got closer, CNN upgraded from its normal size countdown clock to a special super-size clock that took up almost half the screen,” while showing a clip of the mega-clock. “Soon, Wolf Blitzer is gonna have surgery to get a new head.”
Then it was a blast of MSNBC. The network’s cameras caught Trump sitting in the back of his limousine waiting to be whisked to Capitol Hill. He was practicing his speech and the MSNBC crew got a big kick out of it, giving commentary like, “He’s actually voicing it,” and “Look at him,” and “He has no idea he’s on television.”
“They’re talking like they’re watching a gorilla at the zoo. Oooh, look at that, he’s using sign language and ho, ho, he loves that tire,” Meyers said.
