The Media Research Center’s comedy cop, Alex Christy, complained that Donald Trump’s New York trial was discussed on late-night TV. With the verdict finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts, Christy lashed out anew at those shows (though, of course, not “Gutfeld”). He groused at Jimmy Kimmel in a May 31 post:
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel had the distinction of being the only late night host on the air on Thursday to react to former President Donald Trump’s New York conviction. Naturally, he and his audience were quite thrilled with Kimmel dreaming about putting the jury on the Supreme Court and being thankful that “this guy” got “some comeuppance.”
Kimmel began his show by reporting, “We have a verdict in the case of the people versus O.J., I mean, D.J. Donald John Trump is guilty of 34 felony charges! After seven long weeks, the courtroom is empty and Donald Trump’s diaper is full.”
[…]After dreaming about Trump on the side of the road picking up ketchup packets as part of a community service sentence, Kimmel reported, “As if the day wasn’t rough enough for Trump, the only family member who was there with him when the verdict was read was Eric. No Melania. No Ivanka. Just stupid Eric. Actually, there was a sweet moment when the verdict was read. They say Eric, who was sitting behind his father, put his arm around his dad and he leaned in close and Trump whispered, ‘I wish this had happened to you.’”
Kimmel then took glee in Trump and his supporters misfortune, “Eric did his best though to give it — he wrote – ‘May 30th, 2024 might be remembered as the day Donald J. Trump won the 2024 Presidential Election.’ Or it will be remembered as the day a jury in New York spanked your dad even harder than Stormy did with that Forbes magazine. I think– I guess we’ll have to wait to find out. It was very satisfying to finally see this guy get some comeuppance. And even more satisfying to see all the bloodsucking jellyfish who feed off his essence lose their minds.”
At least Kimmel admitted that his interest in Trump’s case was not one of following the law, but of achieving a desired result against people he doesn’t like.
As if Christy and his MRC buddies’ years of attacks on Hunter Biden are all about following the law and nothing about trying to personally destroy a man for the lulz and to destroy his father in the process.
Christy raged at Kimmel again the following day:
During a rare Friday edition of his ABC show, legal non-expert Jimmy Kimmel asserted that Republicans who claim to be outraged at the conviction of former President Donald Trump are lying.
For Kimmel, Republicans are simply scared of Trump, “And then we have our leaders in the GOP who could not care less about Americans and how important it is that we have faith in our legal system. They know Trump is guilty. They don’t even like Donald Trump, but they’re so scared of him. Ted Cruz was on our show back in, I think it was, 2016. He told me, and this is a quote, he said this on television, he said, ‘If I were in my car and getting ready to reverse and saw Donald in the backup camera, I’m not confident which pedal I’d push.’”
Teeing up a montage of various Republicans denouncing the outcome, Kimmel continued, “Okay? But that primal urge to run Trump over didn’t stop Sweaty Teddy and all the other pathetic sycophants jockeying for lip space on his big, pimply ass from pretending to be outraged by this outrageous attack on their beloved Baron Von Shitzenpants.”
What does not liking Trump have to do with anything? CNN legal analyst Elie Honig is a reliable liberal who has written books on his strong dislike of Trump’s presidency. Yet, he reacted to the verdict by arguing that any liberal who doesn’t have a problem with Judge Juan Merchan being a Biden donor is a hypocrite and that there is a compelling argument to be made that Trump was denied his Sixth Amendment right to be fully informed of the charges brought against him.
Of course, Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t care about any of that because for the late night comedians, the case was simply about getting Trump and to the extent that the details of the case mattered, they only did so insofar as they could make it about sex.
Well, yes, when the criminal acts were caused by Trump paying hush money to a porn star to cover up an affair, things do tend to be about sex.
Christy lashed out at non-Kimmel hosts in a June 4 post:
Monday provided many of the late night comedians with their first opportunities to react to former President Trump being found guilty in his New York trial. They invoked everything from advent calendars holding whiskey to Blu-ray recorders to bad Hunter Biden analogies to applaud the verdict and attack Republicans for condemning it.
CBS’s Stephen Colbert kicked off The Late Show by doing his best James Brown impression, “Of course, the news being what it is, sometimes I don’t feel so great. But tonight ‘I feel good!’ Because… on Thursday evening, Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money case.”
Later, he rolled out the props, “Now, the problem is, July 11 is a whole 38 days away. That is so long! I guess I’ll just have to pass the time with my Countdown to Sentencing Advent Calendar. Here we go. Got all 38 days here. Judge Merchan, Judge Merchan like that. Okay, today is day one.”
Colbert proceeded to open the door to reveal a bottle of $400 20-year old Kentucky Bourbon whiskey and promptly poured himself a glass and had a drink.
Late Night host Seth Meyers proclaimed on NBC that he took great pleasure in watching Fox’s initial reporting on the verdict, “I’ve watched that clip so many times, I have it on Blu-ray now.”
Later in his “Closer Look” segment, Meyers didn’t see a problem with the idea that if Trump was not running for president, the case would never have been tried, “Trump’s entire life is now coming back to haunt him, and regardless of how you feel about the case, I think you have to admit it’s pretty funny. All this loud-mouthed dip[bleep] had to do was not run for president and there’s a good chance he would have gotten away with his life of criminality. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you have a closet full of skeletons, don’t announce a campaign for the most closely scrutinized office in the entire world.”
Christy huffed that Meyers called out the “shameless hypocrisy” of Republicans’ kneejerk defense of Trump and that they “see laws not as constraints on power but as tools of power to be wielded against the powerless and for the powerful,” laughably insisting in response that “That does not disprove that there wasn’t funny business going in Trump’s specific trial.”