Seth Meyers took the national news media to task for “bending over backward” to give Donald Trump a chance to undo “18 months of racist, bigoted, unhinged rhetoric.”
“Many in the media are doing everything they can to delude themselves and the nation into thinking this is a normal situation,” said Meyers. “That Trump’s behavior and campaign promises don’t pose a unique threat to fundamental American principles and norms. But fine. If they’re so eager to see if Donald Trump, a 70-year-old billionaire, can suddenly change for the better, let’s give him this fresh start and see if he can surprise us.”
The Late Night host cut to the announcement that Breitbart’s Steve Bannon is Trump’s new chief strategist.
“Well, we gave him a chance,” Meyers said. “Bye, chance, thank you for stopping by.”
He criticized people referring to Bannon as a “controversial” choice. “He’s not ‘controversial,’ he’s a white nationalist and an anti-Semite. Don’t talk about him like he’s pineapple on pizza.”
He continued, “Just to give you a sense of how extreme Breitbart is, the website recently accused President Obama of importing more hating Muslims, compared Planned Parenthood’s work to the Holocaust, called Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator, ‘a renegade Jew,’ and advised female victims of online harassment to just log off and stop screwing up the internet for men.”
When Paul Ryan responded to a question about all of the complaints against Bannon, he responded by saying he’s never met him so he has no concerns.
“I never met John Wilkes Booth, but I let his past work inform my opinion of him,” said Meyers.
He closed by commenting that Trump seems “completely unprepared for this job” and said it’s surreal that Obama is now in charge of tutoring Trump.
Meyers compared the situation to “if a burglar broke into your house and you had to walk him around and show him where all the valuables were.”
