Stephen Colbert on GOP reaction to Trump's debate: 'Oh, now they’re worried?'

Stephen Colbert

A full two days after the disastrous first presidential debate, and “I’ve almost rinsed all the blood out of my ears,” said Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s Late Show. The debate was “a colossal waste of time that diminished anyone unfortunate enough to have watched it,” Colbert added, including its moderator Chris Wallace. The Fox News anchor told the New York Times on Wednesday that the debate was “a terrible missed opportunity”, which is “a tame way to describe an unmitigated disaster”, Colbert responded.

Trump’s debate performance was so bad that even those in his orbit have publicly criticized it, with some GOP senators calling it “awful” and an “embarrassment”, while the Washington Post reported it “stokes fears among Republicans about November”.

“Oh, now they’re worried?” Colbert exclaimed, imagining the Republicans’ logic: “You know, when he ignored a pandemic, and paid no taxes, and called dead soldiers suckers and losers, and asked Ukraine to interfere in our elections, and was credibly accused of multiple sexual assaults, I thought, ‘that’s my guy.’ But then, he interrupted Chris Wallace, and I’m starting to think we backed the wrong horse.”

Related: Trevor Noah: 'The only thing Trump avoids more than condemning white supremacists is taxes'

Nevertheless, at a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday, Trump declared victory – “the verdict is in and they say that we, we, all of us won big last night.” So it appears his debate performance polled well with one demographic, joked Colbert: “narcissists aged 74 to 74 who are him.”

Seth Meyers

The chaotic first presidential debate engendered such criticism that the bipartisan commission in charge of hosting them announced on Wednesday changes to the format to “ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues” in the next two debates. “I just want to say to them: best of luck,” said Seth Meyers. “You know the format is not the problem, right? It’s not like it’s hard to follow the rules. I mean, she did it,” the Late Night host said next to a photo of the 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

“What are you going to do, cut his mic? At this point if you took his mic away, he’d probably just grow a new one, Terminator-style.”

There’s only one way to get Trump to behave at a debate, Meyers added, “and if no one else will say it, I will: any time he breaks the rules, a hologram of Fred Trump” – the president’s late father – should appear and say ‘what part of wait your turn don’t you understand, Donald!’”

Jimmy Kimmel

“The president broke so many rules the debate commission is putting stricter measures in place so he can’t bulldoze and BS his way through it this time,” Jimmy Kimmel reported on Thursday night. In response to the changes, Trump tweeted: “Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?”

“I don’t know, why would you dye your face the color of a pumpkin?” Kimmel retorted. “It’s one of mysteries of Trump.”

Meanwhile, a study from Cornell University deemed President Trump the number one source of coronavirus misinformation in the US, over Facebook and other social networks. “Of course he’s the biggest source of misinformation about the virus,” Kimmel said. “He’s the biggest source of misinformation about everything. If misinformation was a beauty pageant, he would be the winner every year.”

Trevor Noah

And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah also recapped the proposed changes to future debate formats, including the potential for moderators to mute the microphones of candidates not abiding by the rules. “Cutting off Trump’s mic might be a good idea, but they shouldn’t have told him about it in advance,” Noah said. “Because knowing Trump, he’s just going to bring his own mic and a portable speaker like those guys on the subway.

“Even without a microphone, Trump can still find a way to be a distraction without talking,” he added, such as when Trump wandered around the stage and loomed over Hillary Clinton during a 2016 debate.

“If you ask me, they should leave his mic on the same way they shouldn’t ban his Twitter account,” Noah joked, “because I don’t want anybody making Donald Trump seem more sane than he is. Let America see who Donald Trump is!”