Election day is upon us and the late-night hosts are ready. Or as ready as they can be given the circumstances. Jimmy Kimmel used his final show before the election to make an impassioned plea to get rid of Donald Trump, while others mocked the Republican candidate’s recent meltdown over a microphone during one his rallies.
“After a two-year campaign we have finally made it through all 20 years,” Stephen Colbert quipped on The Late Show. “It has felt long.” He continued, more seriously, “We are all, in some true sense, about to witness history. Good or bad. I’m guessing this is how the people of Pompeii felt when Vesuvius was trying to get re-elected.”
Colbert recounted how none of the experts can predict the election outcome. That didn’t stop Kamala Harris from proclaiming “We will win” during her rally in Allentown, but led to Colbert tapping on a block of wood, throwing salt over his shoulder, and frantically licking a rabbit’s foot before taking a shot of tequila. For luck, obviously.
He detailed Harris’ “positive” closing message, noting that Trump’s final message was a bit different. “It’s ‘Bring me the liver of my enemy of a stick,’” Colbert said. He then played footage of Trump’s miming a blow job on his microphone stand. “I was wrong,” Colbert said. “Evidently he does have a jobs plan.”
On Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kimmel had a more direct message in his monologue, making his own closing argument for the election.
“Forget about what side you’re on,” Kimmel said. “I want you to take just take a moment to imagine a world in which you wake up in the morning, you check the news, and no one says the words ‘Donald’ or ‘Trump.’ Just a bunch of normal, boring stuff. Wouldn’t that be nice? No lawn signs. No red hats. No arguing with your grandfather. You check the sports, Al Roker does the weather, off to work you go.”
He concluded, “Let’s remove this cancerous polyp from our collective national colon and move on already. Don’t forget to vote!”
Jordan Klepper was given the honor of hosting The Daily Show‘s final episode ahead of Election Day and he used it as a chance to talk about Harris’ final message and “Trump’s final BJ.”
“Tomorrow is the big day at long last,” Klepper said. “Tilda Swinton’s birthday. She’s turning ageless. So congrats to her. Tomorrow is also Election Day. And, look, I’m not in the prediction business, but I still think Joe Biden can pull this off.”
Klepper showcased the difference in messages for both candidates in their run-up to the election. “For Kamala, it’s a message of hope, unity, and ‘check out who my friends are,’” Klepper said. He continued, “While Kamala is ending the campaign on a note of joy and celebrity hype, Donald Trump’s closing argument is that he’s pissed at basically everyone.”
The host added, before playing the infamous microphone clip, “But Trump wasn’t just giving off dark vibes, he was also giving off a weird sexual energy.”
“What are we doing here people?” Klepper replied with glee. “I hate to say it, but can we please go back to the handjob routine? Please? I mean, you know a campaign has gone off the rails when you go to watch C-SPAN and it asks if you’re over 18.”
On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon noted, “We finally made it.” He added, of the anticipation, “I can’t take it. This must be the type of anxiety the PR guy for Carnival Cruise feels every day.”
Fallon also played the footage of Trump’s incident with a microphone to groans from the audience. “His staff was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s blowing it,’” Fallon replied.
On Late Night With Seth Meyers, host Seth Meyers used his “A Closer Look” segment to reflect on the election’s last moments. “None of us can control what happens tomorrow,” he said. “We can only control how drunk we are when it happens.”
Meyers also aired the microphone moment from Trump’s rally, calling it the candidate’s “closing message.” “I just had a flashback to trying to turn of Cinemax because I heard my parents coming down the stairs,” Meyers said. “Seriously, dude, if you did that during charades you’d be banned from game nights. I don’t care what the answer was.”
