Colbert on the final Trump v Biden debate: 'like dental surgery'

Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump’s performance at the final presidential debate while also ridiculing his decision to leak footage of his 60 Minutes interview.

Stephen Colbert

On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was live after the debate and said that “the highlight for me is that we’ll never have to watch Trump debate ever again”.

When speaking of the final tussle, he said: “It’s like dental surgery” except the president isn’t experiencing toothache, “he’s hurting for cash” after news emerged that the campaign was forced to cancel TV ads after a shortage of funds.

“After tonight his best hope for advertising is standing on a street corner with one of them flippy arrows,” Colbert joked.

Throughout the debate, Trump spouted mostly fabricated numbers, as per usual. “The president has numbers even though the numbers don’t make any sense?” Colbert asked while showing footage of him claiming that 99.9% of young people survive the coronavirus with no problem

“You know old people are the ones that vote, right?” Colbert joked.

Trump also called New York a ghost town. Colbert countered: “When you come to New York, those aren’t ghosts on the street, those are people booing you.”

The president also complained about restaurants using plexiglass protection for diners. “Trump doesn’t want to be wrapped in plastic, it ruins the feeling. And if it breaks, you wind up with an Eric,” Colbert joked.

When Trump’s many accounts and many losses were brought up, he said he “was a businessman doing business”, which amused Colbert. “Trump sounds like three kids stacked in a trench coat trying to be an adult,” he said.

Trump also tried to claim Joe Biden was lying about where he came from. “Where do you think Joe’s from? Nairobi’s big Irish Catholic neighbourhood,” Colbert joked.

By the end, he reminded his audience that “the ultimate mute button is in your hands”.

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers talked about Trump’s week of “whining about the moderator” while also releasing “deeply embarrassing footage” of him having a tantrum during a 60 Minutes interview.

Meyers called it “genuinely one of the most embarrassing and cringe-inducing things I’ve seen on video”.

During the interview, Trump couldn’t come up with details on how those with pre-existing conditions would be protected without the Affordable Care Act. “He doesn’t have a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions, he has a plan to give people pre-existing conditions,” Meyers said in reference to his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.

He has continued to refer to “a bogus criminal investigation” into the Biden family, calling Joe a vacuum cleaner who sucks up the money his son Hunter has left for him. “You don’t get to call anyone else a vacuum cleaner when every time you give a speech you suck in air like a Dirt Devil,” Meyers said.

He also compared his tactics to exactly what he did with Hillary Clinton in 2016. “Trump’s like the guy who uses the same pickup line on every woman he meets because it worked once in 1990,” he joked.

Meyers moved onto Rudy Giuliani, the “Italian Wile E Coyote” who was caught in a compromising situation in the new Borat movie. “If Rudy hadn’t been tricked by a Sacha Baron Cohen character, I would have assumed he was a Sacha Baron Cohen character,” he said.

Trevor Noah

On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah spoke about Trump’s embarrassing 60 Minutes footage. “I don’t think it shows what he thinks it does,” Noah said.

Before the interview started, Lesley Stahl asked Trump if he was okay for some tough questions and he said no he wasn’t. “It’s like at a concert when they go ‘Are you ready to rock?’, no one in the crowd is like, ‘No thanks Mr Bon Jovi.’”

He continued: “Only Donald Trump would think he could choose the level of difficulty of his interview questions.”

Noah said it was as if “he thinks it’s like picking the spiciness of his Chinese food”.

He finished by saying: “What blows my mind the most is that Trump posted this video, thinking it somehow makes him look good. It’s like making your Tinder profile a picture of you crying in the shower.”