Late-night hosts relentlessly made Donald Trump the focus of nearly all of their jokes before the presidential election, but failed to sway the voting, as revealed by a new study.
A shocking 98 percent of the jokes made by Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live in the lead up to Election Day made Trump the butt of the joke, according to media watchdog group Media Research Center.
As many as 1,428 of the 1,463 political jokes on these shows – from September 3 through October 25 – were targeted at Trump, the study found.
‘That’s a whopping 40:1 ratio or almost 98 percent to 2 percent,’ said MRC analyst Alex Christy, as reported by Fox News.
Even when the late-night hosts mocked then-nominee Joe Biden, they often softened the jokes with comments about Trump.
In June, Seth Meyers touched on Biden’s age and cognitive decline but then made sure to note Trump’s criminal convictions.
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel nearly cried after Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2024
Stephen Colbert has dedicated plenty of his jokes to Trump. After Trump won the election, Colbert said, ‘Well, f**k…. It happened again’
The late-night hosts relentlessly made Donald Trump the focus of nearly all of their jokes before the presidential election , but failed to sway the voting
‘As we made clear on this show repeatedly, there’s no equivalency between a competent 81-year-old who occasionally shows signs of age and a demented 77-year-old criminal who says dead people rigged the election and thinks electric boat batteries will lead to shark attacks,’ Meyer clarified.
In September, Kimmel even brought out his wife to the show to roast Trump and tell him to ‘shut up and go away.’
‘Go to Mar-a-Lago, spend all day, every day, cheating at golf and masturbating to Newsmax, and let a competent woman take over. That’s my advice. That’s my advice. Thanks for listening,’ she said.
In late October, Kimmel went on a 20-minute rant against Trump, using clips from the former president’s speeches, interviews and rallies to try and illustrate several aspects he believes make Trump unfit to lead.
‘Am I biased against Donald Trump? Yes,’ Kimmel admitted. ‘Do I think I have good reasons for being biased against him? Yes.
Then just days before the election, SNL had Harris do a 90-second appearance alongside Maya Rudolph, sparking accusations that NBC was violating FCC rules about the air-time given to presidential candidates on tv.
But the liberals’ jokes did not sway the election in the end, as Trump won a decisive victory against vice president Kamala Harris in November.
Kamala Harris made a surprise last-minute cameo on Saturday Night Live, appearing opposite Maiya Rudolph playing herself
Meyers introduced the show by saying that something in his ‘brain broke a lot last night’
Jimmy Fallon had ultra-liberal, Trump-hating actor Whoopi Goldberg on to talk about what happened after the November election
‘The so-called comedians on the late-night shows were never going to harm Trump because their audiences are fully stocked with Trump-hating Democrats who want their fix of Trump hatred,’ said MRC director Tim Graham told Fox News.
‘Colbert and Kimmel and the rest sound more like Democrat Senators more than people hired to make you laugh.’
By November 5th, the late night hosts were left to deal with Trump’s win on live TV, with Kimmel nearly breaking into tears.
Fallon jabbed that America ‘got back together with its crazy ex’ while Colbert hysterically admitted he was not ‘not doing great.’
‘It was a terrible night last night,’ Kimmel said before he listed things that would be ‘terrible’ under a Trump presidency.
‘Well, f**k…. It happened again.’ Colbert said ‘After a bizarre and vicious campaign fueled by a desperate need not to go to jail, Donald Trump has won the 2024 election.’
Meanwhile Meyers told his audience that something in his ‘brain broke a little bit last night.’
