The GOP is launching an all out war on Donald Trump. Remember “Bush’s Brain” Karl Rove? He arranged a meeting between the top fundraisers for Ben Carson and casino mogul Steve Wynn, who as sometimes battled Trump in the business world. While past attacks from the GOP establishment against Trump have often backfired, the thinking is that by funding one of his opponents (and an established “outsider”) they can attack Trump without losing his voters.
“13.5 million viewers watched the debate last night, which was a record for the Fox Business channel. By the way, is Fox Business always a channel or is that a one-night thing? I’ve never seen that one before.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“The debate was about the economy and I have to say it was not as much fun as the last one. It was mostly boring. And there are too many people on stage. It might be time to split the candidates into teams and make them play dodgeball or something to see who stays.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Last night was the fourth Republican debate. And if you thought it was exciting to watch on TV, imagine being Jeb Bush watching the whole thing from his podium!” – Jimmy Fallon
“Jeb needed a big win last night but he really disappeared. He finished seventh of eight in total talking time. He was the least-Googled candidate in the debate. The only person who Googled Jeb Bush last night was his mother, Barbara, because even she forgot who he was.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“According to Politico, the new most-searched-for phrase associated with Jeb Bush is ‘is Jeb Bush still running for president?’ Even worse, it’s the most-searched-for phrase on Jeb Bush’s computer.” – Seth Meyers
“Dr. Ben Carson is still the front-runner despite the fact that many experts say he had a bad debate. I thought it went fine. His mouth kind of moved, words came out so we can hear him.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Ben Carson did say he’s tired about answering questions about his personal history. The last thing Ben Carson needs is to be even more tired than he already appears to be.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“After some controversial statements recently, a lot of people had their eyes on Ben Carson last night. And at one point, he said that his 3-year-old granddaughter was at the debate because she said she wanted to go. And also because she’s his most reliable fact-checker.” – Jimmy Fallon
“According to several online polls, Donald Trump was the winner of last night’s presidential debate. When reached for comment Trump said, ‘Melania, keep clicking!'” – Seth Meyers
“Last night, Donald Trump said that he actually supports Russia’s fight against ISIS in Syria. Yeah, Trump teaming up with Putin. Or as that’s also known, the best ‘Amazing Race’ team EVER.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump said he got to know Vladimir Putin very well because they were on ’60 Minutes’ the same night, even though they were interviewed by different hosts in different locations. Then he said it was a pleasure to meet Flo the Progressive lady during the commercial break.” – Conan O’Brien
“During the debate last night, Marco Rubio said, ‘We need more welders and less philosophers.’ Graduates with a philosophy degree were so furious, they got on their parents’ computers and wrote angry emails.” – Conan O’Brien
“Hillary Clinton this week has begun telling the story of her attempt to join the Marines in 1975. But the closest she ever came to the Marines was buying a pantsuit at Old Navy.” – Seth Meyers
Another great comic from Tom Tomorrow. The more I think about this, the more I think that the resistance to Syrian refugees is based on pure racism. Just like the resistance to Jewish refugees from Germany on the eve of WWII was based on anti-semitism.
Does this mean that the Republican politicians who oppose resettling Syrian refugees are racist? Not really. I actually think they are cravenly using the latent racism held by Americans for political gain. Which is probably worse.
“The fourth Republican presidential debate was tonight! And if you’ve watched all four … you do know about Netflix, right?” – Jimmy Fallon
“Tonight was the fourth Republican presidential debate featuring Donald Trump, Ben Carson, other people. Their names escape me.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“I’m starting to get bored by these debates. No one asked me but I would like to see them have a drunk debate. Everyone gets loaded and we find out what they really think about things.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“The debate was televised on the Fox Business Channel. Between now and November of next year, every cable network gets a debate. Next week is the E! News debate moderated by Ryan Seacrest and Caitlyn Jenner.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Only the candidates polling above 2.5 percent got to be in the main debate tonight. The other guys were demoted to the kids’ table, the early debate. Good luck fighting Chris Christie for the McNuggets at the kids’ table.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“The fourth Republican debate was held tonight and Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee were demoted to the undercard event. Meanwhile, Bobby Jindal isn’t even allowed to WATCH.” – Seth Meyers
“Yesterday when asked if he could go back in time and kill baby Hitler, Jeb Bush responded, ‘Hell yeah, I would!’ I’m OK with him saying he’d kill baby Hitler. I’m not OK with him saying ‘Hell yeah’ he’d kill baby Hitler. It’s a complex hypothetical question, not a waitress asking you if you want another plate of chicken wings, Jeb.” – James Corden
“Jeb Bush said in a new interview that if he could travel back in time he would kill Hitler as a baby, adding, ‘You gotta step up, man.’ And it’s comments like those that have a lot of people telling Jeb, ‘You gotta step down, man.'” – Seth Meyers
“While we’re taping this, the fourth Republican debate has not happened yet, but I’m kind of hoping they ask the other candidates what they would do if they had a time machine. I think Ben Carson would travel back to his childhood so that he can really stab that guy.” – James Corden
“Carly Fiorina would go back to that one week when she had great poll numbers. Just kidding — Carly Fiorina would go back to when she laid off 30,000 HP employees just to cackle and taste the blood again.” – James Corden
“Donald Trump actually claimed to already have a time machine. It is true. He said, ‘It’s huge and beautiful and I made Mexico pay for it.'” – James Corden
“Donald Trump said Ben Carson is wrong about the Egyptian pyramids being used to store grain, because the pyramids are solid. And that, ladies and gentlemen, perfectly sums up the Republican presidential race.” – Conan O’Brien
“Donald Trump weighed in on the controversial decision by Starbucks to remove Christmas imagery from their holiday cups, saying, ‘If I become president, we’re all going to be saying Merry Christmas again.’ Though the only way I could see Donald Trump saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is if he’s correcting someone who just said ‘Feliz Navidad’.” – Seth Meyers
“Donald also weighed in on the important subject of Starbucks not having Christmas-themed designs on their cups this year. ‘I don’t care if you’ve got three yarmulkes on, you’re going to say Merry Christmas, damn it.'” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Yesterday, Donald Trump said that he’s thinking about boycotting Starbucks because ‘Merry Christmas’ isn’t printed on its red holiday cups. Trump was like, ‘Everything should have one of two things written on it: ‘Merry Christmas’ or my name.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump said if he becomes president, Americans will be ‘saying Merry Christmas again.’ Which may be true, but if he becomes president, we’ll be saying it from our new homes in Canada.” – Conan O’Brien
“Because Donald Trump hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’, NBC is now obligated to give the other presidential candidates free air time. As a result, each candidate will appear as a tattoo on that girl from ‘Blindspot’.” – Conan O’Brien
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea, but Pizza Hut just unveiled its new ‘Triple Threat Box’, which is a box with three drawers that holds pizza, breadsticks, and a big chocolate chip cookie. Or as Chris Christie calls that, ‘A wallet’.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Ben Carson recently went on Facebook to offer proof that the events he talked about in his life really happened. Which is ironic, because people usually go on Facebook to DELETE proof that events in their life happened.” – Jimmy Fallon
“President Obama now has a personal Facebook page where he says he wants to have real conversations about issues. In other words, he’s new to Facebook.” – Conan O’Brien
“A county in Colorado just voted to put taxes from selling marijuana toward supporting college scholarships. And you can tell it’s a weed scholarship, because it actually pays for 11 years of college.” – Jimmy Fallon
When Seth Meyers does a much better job of exposing the embarrassment that is Donald Trump, using Trump’s own words:
I’m wondering if Trumps supporters are finally getting tired of him, or if nothing he says can sway them. When does the next poll come out?
UPDATE: Great timing! A new poll just came out, and Trump dropped 12 points in less than a week.
“A new report from CNN suggests that Ben Carson made up the stories of his violent temper from his youth, including one where he said he almost stabbed a kid. That’s how weird this presidential election is: A candidate is now in trouble because he DIDN’T stab someone as a kid.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Ben Carson claims when he was a kid he tried to stab another kid but the kid’s belt buckle got in the way and saved him. Some people don’t believe this happened. So now he’s found himself in the very unusual position of having to say, ‘Yes, I did too try to stab somebody!'” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Dr. Ben Carson is drawing intense criticism after reports have surfaced that he may have embellished his history of violence as a teen, his scholarship to West Point, and other parts of his life story. Not only that, but it turns out the twins he separated were fraternal.” – Seth Meyers
“I had the cutest thing happen last night. I was putting my daughter to bed, and she asked me to read her a fairy tale. I said, ‘Mother Goose?’ She said, ‘No, Ben Carson.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Ben Carson apparently has a painting of himself with Jesus. When he heard this, Larry King said, ‘Big deal, I have a selfie with Jesus.'” – Conan O’Brien
“RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said today that the media is unfairly fixating on Dr. Ben Carson. And Ben Carson said that Reince Priebus is a condition that can result in blindness if left untreated.” – Seth Meyers
“Meanwhile, Ben Carson’s campaign launched a 60-second ad that features a rap about Ben Carson, aimed at young black voters. So you know what that means – it’ll do great with young white voters.” – Jimmy Fallon
“In a recent interview, Jeb Bush said that his 91-year-old dad doesn’t give him much advice and instead, just drinks martinis and gets massages all day. When asked how many martinis he drinks, the massage therapist said, ‘As many as possible before I massage a 91-year-old man.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree arrived on Friday. They’re calling the tree ‘Jeb’ because it’s a dying bush.” – Seth Meyers
“Jeb Bush also said that he’s learning to toot his own horn a little better, which is good because pretty soon he’s going to be the one driving his campaign bus.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Everyone on the GOP side is about to get plenty of face time at tomorrow’s fourth Republican debate. All eyes are on Marco Rubio. He looked presidential at the last debate thanks to his brilliant strategy of standing next to Jeb Bush.” – Stephen Colbert
“Donald Trump is actually starting to run some radio ads where he accuses politicians of being ‘all talk and no action’. Which is ironic – since radio ads are LITERALLY all talk and no action. That’s what radio is.” – Jimmy Fallon
“After nearly seven years in office, President Obama has finally scored one of his biggest political achievements. That’s right, today Barack Obama joined Facebook.” – James Corden
“The president actually signed up this morning, which means by noon, Sasha and Malia had already started ignoring friend requests from him.” – James Corden
“SeaWorld is phasing out its killer whale show. Or as Fox News reported it, ‘More killers set free under Obama.'” – Conan O’Brien
“Even Bernie Sanders is on Facebook, except he can’t log in without a modem and one of those ‘Free AOL’ CDs.” – James Corden
“Obama and Facebook actually have a lot in common. They both captured America’s hearts and minds eight years ago, and they both seem to bring out a lot of racism in people.” – James Corden
“Bernie Sanders this weekend argued against the major political fundraising families, saying, ‘That is not called democracy, that is called oligarchy.’ Bernie, you gotta dumb it down a little. Most Americans think ‘oligarchy’ is that place that serves unlimited breadsticks.” – Seth Meyers
“A Colorado marijuana dispensary this week is opening the country’s first combination pot store and gas station. On the downside, you’ll have no idea what you’re getting when you order the Premium Diesel.” – Seth Meyers
“As of yesterday the 2016 presidential election is just one year away, which means it’s only 11 months until voters start paying attention.” – Stephen Colbert
Also, commentary by Lalo Alcaraz:
I have mixed feelings on the Syrian refugee crisis. Of course, we know that Republicans are turning a well established US refugee program into a political football by playing on terrorism fears and anti-Muslim fervor. On the other hand, our people have not fared well early on with some refugees, mainly the ones depicted above. I guess all we can do is give thanks that Syrian toddlers and their families are far less likely to do harm to our people than the violent religious fanatic depicted above. On a totally unrelated note, Happy Thanksgiving!
Is it fair to say that (other than Native Americans) almost everyone in this country it descended from some sort of refugee? We all have reasons to be thankful.
Why did your ancestors come to this fair land? There must have been some reason they wanted or needed to leave their home for the new world. Personally, I have ancestors who fled the Nazis, others who were sent far away for breaking the law, others who fled looking for a better opportunity. America accepted them with open arms (for the most part, or at least gave them a fighting chance). Have we forgotten that America once was, and still should be, a great melting pot for humanity?
“As I’m sure you’ve heard, Donald Trump is in the building getting ready to host ‘Saturday Night Live’. There’s actually a lot of anti-Trump protesters outside the building — or as Trump put it, ‘Those people have been lining up for days to see me.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Donald Trump put out his first paid campaign ads today. He bought them himself. You know, he doesn’t take money from super PACs. He earns it the old-fashioned way, by selling cologne at Rite Aid.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“In an interview yesterday, Trump and CNN anchor Chris Cuomo got in a heated argument after Trump repeatedly insulted reporter Sara Murray. CNN was like, ‘Guys, keep it down! You’ll wake the viewers!'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Former President George H.W. Bush has a new biography coming out titled ‘Destiny and Power.’ While Jeb Bush has a new biography titled neither of those.” – Seth Meyers
“A new Quinnipiac University poll came out yesterday that shows Donald Trump back on top of Ben Carson, 24 to 23 percent, and Jeb Bush is now down to only 4 percent. More people picked Bit-O-Honey as their favorite Halloween candy than support Jeb Bush for president.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign today released a new 60-second radio ad that uses rap music to try to appeal to black voters. So there you have it: Get out and vote for Ben Carson on November 3rd, 1992.” – Seth Meyers
“Dr. Ben Carson said this week he would like to have a beer with Jesus. When reached for comment, Jesus said, ‘Oh, I have to work tomorrow.'” – Seth Meyers
“I saw that this week marks one year until the 2016 election. Or as Hillary calls that, ‘Five years until my re-election.'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Hillary Clinton is here with us tonight and we’ll be touching on all the big topics: the economy, climate change, ISIS, whether Khloe should take Lamar back, everything.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“A new report found that Hillary Clinton’s campaign most often eats pizza for meals. While Chris Christie’s campaign most often eats pizza for snacks.” – Seth Meyers
Donald Trump is still claiming (loudly and repeatedly, of course) that he personally saw “thousands and thousands of people” in Jersey City, NJ cheering in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. This despite the fact that multiple fact checking services have called him a liar over it, and even the police have denied it ever happened.
But Trump said he has proof, pulling out a story from the Washington Post from September 18 and reading it out loud at a campaign event in Ohio. The story says that “law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.”
That’s the best he can do for proof? One article that says that a few people were questioned for “allegedly” celebrating? That’s a far cry from personally seeing “thousands and thousands of people”.
Unfortunately for Trump, even the two reporters who wrote that story say that they “could never verify that report” and that they “do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating”. And there is no actual video of anyone celebrating to be found, even though Trump claims he saw it on TV.
But my favorite part of this is how Trump supporters are dealing with this. One said:
I mean, it probably did happen in some ways. Let’s face it, you look at the facts, it did happen. There’s good Muslims as well as those that aim to harm America. I think those are the ones we’re concerned about.
Note how he pivoted from “probably did happen” to “it did happen”, and then changed the subject.
This mirrors how Trump thinks. In a “classic” stream-of-conscieousness progression Trump said later on TV, “So, nobody believed me. Some people believed me. By the way, thousands of people believe me because they saw it.” Wow.
Another supporter went even further and claimed that there have been anniversary celebrations of the attacks.
Trump’s reality-free zone even affected another presidential candidate. Ben Carson first claimed that he saw Muslims cheering in New Jersey on TV news coverage after the 9/11 attacks. But he then changed his mind and walked back those comments.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver points out that the number of Trump supporters is around the same number of people who still think the moon landing was faked. In other words, reality may not particularly mean anything to them.
UPDATE: Trump proceeds to sprint even further away from reality. Last Saturday, a known black activist shouted “black lives matter” at a Trump rally in Birmingham Alabama. Trump stopped his remarks and said “Get him out of here. Throw him out!”. Television footage then shows the protestor on the ground, surrounded by several white men who appear to be kicking and punching him, and one man put his hands on the protester’s neck in an apparent attempt to choke him.
The next day on Fox News, Trump responds “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble.” This is a significant change from just a month ago, when Trump told his audience not to harm protesters who often show up at his rallies.
Then Trump goes completely off the deep end. The same day, Trump tweets an image that shows a black man holding a gun titled “USA Crime Statistics” for 2015, including claiming that 81% of white murder victims were killed by blacks. At the bottom of the image, it says that the source is the “Crime Statistics Bureau – San Francisco”:
Ignoring that the image is blatantly racist and offensive, it also has nothing to do with reality. According to PolitiFact (who give Trump a “Pants on Fire” for this), “The most glaring inaccuracies have to do with white homicide victims. Trump cast blacks as the primary killers of whites, but the exact opposite is true.” In fact, only 15% of the murders of whites are committed by blacks, not the 81% claimed by Trump.”
The other “statistics” shown in the image are also off, all but one of them by factors of 400 to 540 percent. Which is not surprising considering that the “Crime Statistics Bureau” doesn’t exist. Even if it did, you would think that Trump might notice that the image claims to have crime statistics for 2015, but no such numbers have been published because the year isn’t even over yet.
Then, the image is traced back to a tweet from a white supremacist in the UK. Here’s his bio, complete with an admiring remark about Hitler. His avatar is a modified swastika that is the symbol of a neo-Nazi religious group in Germany.
A leading Republican candidate for president is tweeting neo-Nazi propaganda and expressing approval of protesters being beaten up at his campaign rallies. Seriously? Could Trump get any more disgusting? I’m almost afraid to ask that question, because he undoubtably can.
On Saturday, Democrat John Bel Edwards won a runoff election and was elected governor of Louisiana. Why is this newsworthy? Because he is the first Democrat elected to a statewide office there since 2008. His opponent was David Vitter, who has been plagued by scandals.
Why wasn’t current governor Bobby Jindal in the race? Because he was term limited, but might have lost even if he could have run. Despite running for president, when he dropped out of the presidential race last Wednesday his approval rating in his own state had dropped to 20%. Clearly, people there were ready for a change.
The other good news is that the new governor has pledged to expand Medicaid in his state under Obamacare, which could make Louisiana the first state in the deep south to do so. That will provide health insurance to around 225,000 people in the state, which is one of the poorest in the nation.
“USA Today’s GOP ‘Power Rankings’ had some big shake-ups this week, with Marco Rubio in the lead and Chris Christie in the top five. Yep, Rubio is number one, while Christie is numbers two through five.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Jeb! Just released a brand new e-book entitled ‘Reply all’. It’s a great way to show you’re done making mistakes by naming a book after something people do by accident.” – Stephen Colbert
“Jeb Bush clearly needs some help because it feels like his campaign is sleepwalking. Which, admittedly, is a strategy that’s working for Ben Carson.” – Stephen Colbert
“In one of his books, Ben Carson actually admitted to falling asleep several times while driving his car. He started taking Ubers to be safe, but his drivers kept falling asleep while listening to him talk.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Yesterday was Election Day here in the United States. In Ohio they voted no on legalizing marijuana for recreational and medical use and 65 percent of the voters said no. How could Ohio vote against marijuana? They have ‘High’ right in the middle of their name.” – Jimmy Kimmel
“Ohio voters yesterday rejected a proposal that would have legalized both recreational and medical marijuana. Pot advocates were so devastated that there was hardly a dry mouth in the house.” – Seth Meyers
“Starting tomorrow, ‘Thursday night football’ will be seen only on NFL network and they’re kicking off with a heck of a matchup: The Cleveland Browns versus the undefeated Cincinnati Bengals. It’s the battle of Ohio, so Governor John Kasich is going to have to bet a signature regional food item against himself.” – Stephen Colbert
Yeah, thanks GOP for keeping America safe.
not.
I love how the right manages to remain reality-free. The latest news is that conservatives are threatening to move to Canada if the US takes in Syrian refugees. I guess nobody told them.
“As of today, we are officially one year away from the 2016 presidential election. If that seems like a long time to wait, just remember some people (Hillary) have been waiting their whole lives.” – Seth Meyers
“‘Crippled America’ outlines Donald Trump’s plan to make America great again. Though the book doesn’t say specifically WHEN he’s leaving.” – Seth Meyers
“A new national poll found that Ben Carson is now ahead of Donald Trump by six points in the Republican race. Finally proving that you can LITERALLY sleep your way to the top.” – Jimmy Fallon
“After being courted by several candidates, conservative billionaire Paul Singer has decided to endorse Marco Rubio. Now instead of having a button that says, ‘Donate’, Rubio’s website just says, ‘We Good’.” – Jimmy Fallon
“Congrats to the Kansas City Royals, who beat the Mets to win their first World Series in 30 years. Since the Royals won, they’ll get to meet President Obama. And since the Mets blew an early lead and lost, they’ll get to meet Jeb Bush.” – Jimmy Fallon
“I read about a 73-year-old man who turned in his collection of half a million pennies he’s found on the street throughout his life, amounting to over five-thousand dollars. When asked what he’ll do with the money, Bernie Sanders said, ‘Finance my campaign!'” – Jimmy Fallon
“Bernie Sanders this weekend took his three grandchildren trick-or-treating in New Hampshire. Or as Fox News reported it, ‘Bernie Sanders Supports Handouts for the Unemployed.'” – Seth Meyers
“I saw that Jay-Z and Beyoncé dressed as the characters from the Eddie Murphy movie ‘Coming to America.’ In fact their ‘Coming to America’ costumes were so good, Donald Trump had them both deported.” – Jimmy Fallon
“I saw that the New York Times published an op-ed about Chris Christie’s campaign titled, ‘Chris Christie, Time to Go Home.’ Incidentally, that’s the same thing that the people at Golden Corral say when they’re closing.” – Jimmy Fallon
“This Sunday is the end of Daylight Savings Time, when we all get an extra hour of sleep! Which means Ben Carson will be getting 25 hours of sleep.” – Jimmy Fallon
Some people are comparing our hostility to the Syrian refugees to a similar situation on the eve of WWII, when 67% of Americans were against letting Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany come to the US. And 100 years before that, refugees from the Irish Famine were treated just as badly.
Daesh (and terrorism) is our enemy, not Muslims.
Can we learn from the past, or are we doomed to repeat it?
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