A day after Trump's latest incoherent on-camera brag about passing a cognitive assessment became a gleeful Twitter meme, you'd expect the late night hosts to have a lot of fun with that "person, woman, man, camera, TV" moment. Seth Meyers didn't disappoint when it came to roasting Trump's current obsession with "proving to everyone that his brain works" in Thursday's Closer Look segment.
"They sound like the words you can't say on the Taboo card for 'ultrasound,'" he joked. "You sound like Tarzan reviewing the season premiere of The Morning Show: 'Person, woman, man, camera, TV, Tarzan give five stars.'"
But Meyers saved the best for last, ending with a stark monologue laying out how the problems facing Americans now didn't start with Trump, and it's worth watching — or reading — in its entirety.
"Just step back and consider the cruel contrast between Trump's plan to send secret police to cities to crack down on peaceful protests and his lack of a plan for a raging pandemic that's killed 140,000 Americans and left tens of millions out of work and many more suffering," Meyers began.
"There's a deeper problem here. Trump is just the most grotesque and urgent manifestation of that problem in our history. Too often, our system uses violence and incarceration to respond to problems instead of just meeting the actual needs of human beings. That's why our police departments have tanks, but nearly 30 million people don't have health insurance. It's why we have a Department of Homeland Security, but 23 million Americans face eviction. That's why the Pentagon gets $740 billion a year, but there are long lines at food banks and an extra $600 a week for unemployed Americans is about to expire. And it's why we have secret police who feel perfectly free to beat up any person, woman, and man, in front of cameras, on TV.
"Anyone should be able to see how fucked up this is, whether you can identify an elephant on a piece of paper or not," he concluded. "The President is a wannabe dictator using paramilitary forces as his own personal secret police. Meanwhile, he couldn't care less about the tens of millions of Americans suffering from an out-of-control pandemic he's ignored for months. That much should be obvious to every—" And then Meyers gave the last word to Trump: "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV."
