Seth Meyers Bans Donald Trump From ‘Late Night’ Interviews: Here’s Why [Video]
Seth Meyers talks about Donald Trump quite a bit on Late Night, but the NBC talk show host isn’t interested in giving the GOP presidential nominee one more media platform to promote his favorite political conspiracy theories and Trump-branded products. According to Meyers, Trump has been banned from appearing on Late Night.
As People reports, Seth Meyers announced his Donald Trump ban last night on Late Night. Meyers’ main job might be making people laugh, but the former Saturday Night Live star has delved into the world of political commentary with his “A Closer Look” segments. They seem designed to appeal to The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight crowd, and Donald Trump is often the subject of them.
This was the case last night when Seth Meyers addressed the presumptive GOP nominee’s decision to revoke the press credentials of the Washington Post in response to the paper’s piece titled “Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting.” Post writer Jenna Johnson attempted to decipher the meaning of Trump’s much-discussed comments about Barack Obama’s response to the June 12 mass shooting in Orlando, and Trump was not happy with her analysis of them. The former reality show star was so upset that he banned the Washington Post from covering his campaign, and Seth Meyer thinks that Donald finally took things too far with this unprecedented move.
“As for The Washington Post, we here at Late Night believe in freedom of the press and therefore have decided to stand in solidarity with them,” Meyers said. “So as long as The Washington Post is banned from Donald Trump’s campaign, Donald Trump will be banned from ever coming on this show. You missed out, buddy…. We could have driven around together while you yelled out the window at immigrants in Carpool Scary-oke.”
Meyers pointed out that Trump’s list of banned media outlets also includes The Huffington Post, Politico, The Daily Beast, and BuzzFeed.
“By election day the only media outlets that are going to be allowed on Trump’s campaign are going to be the National Enquirer and Rich Pricks Monthly,” Seth Meyers said. The Washington Post previously reported that Trump does have “a very friendly relationship with the Enquirer,” and he’s scored the tabloid’s presidential endorsement.
As Seth Meyers pointed out, Trump responded to the mass shooting in Orlando that took the lives of 49 victims by seemingly suggesting that “President Obama sympathized with terrorists.”
“Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” Trump said of Obama’s response to the shooting. “And the something else in mind — you know, people can’t believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”
Donald Trump was later given the chance to clarify his comments during a radio interview, but he declined to do so. Instead, he said that people can “figure that out for themselves.”
“The worst part about Trump’s campaign isn’t just that he says crazy s**t, but that he expects us to figure out the crazy s**t he says,” Seth Meyers quipped. You can check out his entire “A Closer Look” segment below.
It might not be in Seth Meyers’ best interest to lend a sympathetic ear to Trump on his show, anyway; many of his best-performing Late Night YouTube clips involve skewering the presidential hopeful. Most Late Night videos don’t top 100,000 views, but his “A Closer Look” segments about Trump University and Trump’s White Nationalist fans both have over half a million views.
Seth Meyers admitted that Donald Trump probably wouldn’t have appeared on his show even if he hadn’t banned him from it, which is likely because the former host of Celebrity Apprentice still isn’t happy about being the butt of Meyers’ jokes at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. As Entertainment Weekly points out, Trump was making news at the time by being an outspoken champion of the “birther” movement. Fast forward a few years later, and Meyers is still mocking Trump, who is still buying into crazy conspiracy theories. These include the National Enquirer‘s allegation that Ted Cruz’s father was with Lee Harvey Oswald before Oswald shot John F. Kennedy.
So while Donald Trump might not appear on Seth Meyers’ show anytime soon, the ghost of the “racist orange Hulk with tiny hands” will still continue to haunt Late Night.
[Image via NBC/YouTube]
