Seth Meyers Lashes Out at Politicians ‘Whining About Comedy Shows’
After Kamala Harris sat across from Maya Rudolph on last week’s SNL cold open, some politicians on the other side of the aisle cried foul. For example, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr (not coincidentally, a guy appointed by Donald Trump) posted on social media that NBC and Saturday Night Live made “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” Carr even rumbled that the FCC would consider revoking NBC’s license over the infraction.
The threats worked — NBC aired a free, 90-second Trump ad during two sporting events this weekend to ensure the candidate had equal time.
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The controversy had Seth Meyers breathing fire on his “Closer Look” segment the night before the election. “This is how they are choosing to end their campaign: unhinged allegations of cheating, whining about comedy shows, floating plans to ban vaccines and threatening to retaliate against enemies, outlaw polls and penalize speech they don’t like,” ranted the Late Night host. “Trump is not being subtle about the threat he poses. He’s dangerous.”
Isn’t Meyers worried about retaliation if the election goes Trump’s way? Doesn’t sound like it. “You wanna revoke NBC’s broadcast license? Well, joke’s on you,” he said. “NBC doesn’t have a license. It expired in 2005, and we forgot to fill out the paperwork for a new one, so for the last 19 years, we’ve been broadcasting illegally from the back of a sprinter van that just circles Times Square.”
It’s no secret that Meyers leans left, but last night he took off the gloves. “That’s their closing message. Are you going to vote for a woman whose laugh they don't like? Or are you going to vote for a guy who fomented a violent coup attempt after a months-long campaign to overturn the 2020 election, undercut the nation’s response to a deadly pandemic that spiraled out of control because he tried to cover it up, lied about its severity, promoted sham treatments for it, said we could cure it by injecting disinfectant and shining powerful lights inside the body and became the first president since Herbert Hoover to oversee a net job loss.” (This particular diatribe went on for several more minutes, but you get the idea.)
At least it will all end soon, though no one knows how. Meyers complained about every major news network citing polls that show the candidates in a dead heat. “How can so many polls be tied?” he wondered. “Are they doing the first half of the poll at an artisanal coffee shop in Williamsburg and the second half of the poll in the beer line at a Kid Rock concert?”
Ultimately, “none of us can control what happens tomorrow,” Meyers said. “We can only control how drunk we are when it happens.”
