Late-night television hosts recently directed their focus on ex-President Donald Trump, criticizing his employment of a ableist slur and portrayed as unconvincing attempts to address growing questions about his cognitive health.
Beginning his monologue, Jon Stewart took aim at a inflammatory Truth Social message in which Trump described Minnesota Governor Tim Walz with a highly offensive ableist term. "On the holiday?!" Stewart remarked. "Did you mix it up with Festivus?"
When questioned by reporters if he felt any remorse, Trump reportedly doubled down, insisting there was "something seriously wrong" with the Democratic governor.
"Something wrong with him? With him?" Stewart retorted. "You sat with your family at Thanksgiving, belly full of turkey and pie, surrounded by the love of your extended crime family, but your initial instinct was to Truth a slur at Tim Walz? And there’s something wrong with him?"
The host then turned to Trump's bizarre explanation of a recently revealed medical scan. In an attempt to downplay worries, Trump stated he had "zero knowledge" what part of his body was examined, remarking it "couldn't have been his brain" because he "aced a cognitive test."
"That’s not physically possible," Stewart countered. "To have no idea, it’s not possible. What could you possibly say to the doctor? ‘Wait, stop, don’t tell me. I want to find out at my scan unveiling celebration.’"
He continued, "Good grief, man, were you not curious at all? When they laid you down in a tube for a half an hour, you didn’t want to know what they might be doing? Or did you just think to yourself, ‘This is a noisy tanning bed’?"
Stewart further ridiculed Trump's assertion of a "flawless result" on the scan. "That’s how they score the MRIs," he quipped. "It's either a big stamp, ‘Perfect,’ or you get in red ink, ‘We need to talk.’"
On his own program, Stephen Colbert pointed out increasing frustration among some former supporters. "Maga folks are starting to notice that Trump views them like livestock," he remarked, referencing anger about funding a gilded event space over tackling affordability concerns.
"Elsewhere, Trump celebrated Thanksgiving in his customary fashion – with racism," Colbert noted, referring to an anti-immigrant rant from the weekend. "Somewhere in all of that nonsense," he summarized, the president also used the ableist slur against Governor Walz.
After Walz challenged him to "Release the MRI results," Trump promised release them, despite his claimed ignorance of what was scanned.
"Well, here's an idea: maybe the part that’s broken is the part that’s meant to retain that information," Colbert noted.
He then poked fun at the follow-up official explanation—a medical note stating the MRI was for preventative screening. "Alright, that's reasonable," Colbert conceded. "People his age also benefit from retiring, so … can we write that prescription next?"
Jimmy Kimmel also condemned Trump's use of the slur. "See, he can be presidential when he wants to be!" he joked. "It's puzzling why he didn’t get that Nobel peace prize. It defies all logic."
Regarding Trump's subsequent statement that he thinks "there is a problem" with Walz, Kimmel was blunt: "another bold statement from the president of the middle school."
Kimmel also touched on Trump's claims of record-high approval ratings. "This indicates it’s not just books he can’t read," Kimmel remarked, pointing to polling showing high negative ratings. "There are gas station bathrooms on Yelp with better reviews than Donald Trump right now."
The host finished by criticizing Trump's pledge to pardon a imprisoned international drug trafficker. "Critics have noted the unbelievable hypocrisy of Trump taking a hard line in one instance, while simultaneously pardoning a man who shipped a million pounds of cocaine to this country," said Kimmel. "But those people are just haters and losers, you know? Lighten up!"
"When he was running, Trump made it very clear: his key goals were a) pardoning drug kingpins and b) constructing a venue to ballroom dance," he added. "Commitments stated, promises kept."