Jon Stewart on Trump post-Biden: ‘Like seeing an old man talking to an empty spot on the bench’

Late-night hosts discuss new momentum for Democrats and Donald Trump’s struggle to pivot from attacking Joe Biden to Kamala Harris.

The Daily Show

Donald Trump “is in pain right now”, said Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, citing multiple reports that the former president is fuming over strong poll numbers and enthusiasm for opponent Kamala Harris. “A month ago, he was basically already the fucking president. He had cheated death, started a new ear accessory trend. Back then, people thought his VP selection was a smart choice. He had it all in the bag, and it was taken away.”

“But now instead of enjoying the fruit of six years of Biden attacks, Trump’s gotta start all over again,” Stewart laughed. “And the audience has to literally sit through him getting up to speed.”

Stewart cut to numerous clips of Trump mispronouncing and misspelling Harris’s name.

Related: Jon Stewart to Republicans: ‘You can replace your old guy, too’

“Look, people, they pulled the candidate Trump was crushing. It’s hard,” Stewart said with faux sympathy. “You think you could write a new hour in a month? It’s not easy! He’s trying” – by recycling most of the same attacks he used on Joe Biden.

“Look man, if you want us to genuinely fear your opponent as the existential threat you’d like to make them out to be, you’re going to have to do better than boilerplate, cut-and-paste shit,” Stewart advised. “You’re better than this, Donald.

“I hate to say it: I don’t think Trump has got it in him to go after Kamala Harris. He’s been fighting Joe Biden for six years, it’s all he knows,” he added before video of Trump still testing out nicknames for Biden this weekend. “This is sad,” said Stewart. “It’s like seeing an old man talking to an empty spot on the bench, and then you realize – that’s where his wife used to sit.”

Stewart offered a message to Trump: “He’s not coming back, Donald.”

Stephen Colbert

After two weeks away from The Late Show, Stephen Colbert admitted that, for once, he’s been enjoying the news, because of how Harris “supercharged this campaign”. According to a new poll, Harris leads Trump by four points in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. “I know that sounds exciting, but remember: if we’ve learned anything in this campaign, it’s that polls don’t matter, only votes matter,” he said. “Unless Donald Trump is losing, in which case: wheeee!”

The Democratic campaign has received a “huge boost” from Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz. At his introduction in Philadelphia, the Minnesota governor “really knew how to connect with his core demo”, said Colbert before a clip of Walz saying: “I see those old white guys.”

“And we see you too, sir,” Colbert saluted. “And we are so excited to get together to compare the top 10 Bob Seger songs with you later.”

Meanwhile, “the Fox News ghouls are trying to take down Walz and his record as governor of Minnesota,” said Colbert. Laura Ingraham, for instance, tried this: “If you know Minnesota, and I know it well, especially Milwaukee, it’s changed.”

“You were right, Laura Ingraham. Minnesota has changed, because it apparently now includes Milwaukee,” Colbert mocked.

Trump has taken the shift in campaign momentum hard, with insiders telling the New York Times that he’s “knocked off his bearings”, “disoriented” and “struggling to get past his anger”.

“Well, of course. He’s grieving,” said Colbert. “He’s grieving for his lost lead against Joe Biden. He’s going through all the Trump stages of grief. It goes: anger, anger, denial (that you’re angry), hanger and nugget bucket.”

Seth Meyers

It took Seth Meyers more than five minutes just to recap all the political developments since he went on vacation at the end of July. “When I left this desk three weeks ago, suffice to say, the vibes were brutal,” he noted. “The election felt like a funeral dirge, Trump was leading in national polls and seemed like he was coasting to victory.

“Fast forward to today, Harris is now leading in the polls, including in new ones out from three key swing states,” he said. “If you told Democrats three weeks ago they’d be up four points in those three states by the end of August, they’d be twerking like a Canadian pole vaulter.

“The attention the Harris campaign is receiving is clearly driving Trump out of his mind,” Meyers added. “He’s posting on social media at weird hours like a rabid animal locked in a psych ward.” In one Truth Social post, Trump accused the Harris campaign of “AI-ing” a photo of supporters greeting her plane at the Detroit airport.

“Trump’s current level of madness and incoherence should be disqualifying,” Meyers said. “A normal political party would be panicking or desperately looking for a way to replace Trump or at least trick him into dropping out by laying a trail of chicken nuggets that leads on to a plane that flies to a remote island in the Pacific where he can live out his remaining days on a movie set that looks like the Oval Office.

“But Republicans are not normal,” he continued. “They are, as Tim Walz famously put it, weird. Which is also clearly gotten under Trump’s skin.”

Trump tried to counter at a rally in Montana last week with: “No, we’re not weird. We’re very solid people. I think we’re very actually, I think we’re the opposite of weird. They’re weird!”

“If someone calls you weird, and your response is ‘we’re very solid people’ – you’re fucking weird,” Meyers concluded.