Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Charlottesville wasn't funny. President Trump takes the heat from late night TV

It took President Trump 2 days to denounce the white supremacists and modern-day neo-Nazis involved in the incident in Charlottesville, VA on Saturday. Unfortunately for the embattled President, his reluctant denounciation was fodder for late night television on Monday night/Tuesday morning.

For example, Minnesota Senator and veteran comic Al Franken was on Conan:



On The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon took on a more serious tone:



ABC's Jimmy Kimmel mixed humor with his commentary:



Trump's "many sides" remark had already gotten him in trouble, exposing the fact that he's not as well informed as he'd like us to believe.

And, then, there is Stephen Colbert on The Late Show:



All they had in common was ripping President Trump a few new ones for his lack of venom on Saturday, then pulling a sort-of mea culpa Monday afternoon. Trump then turned around and ripped CNN's Jim Acosta, again referring to the cabler as "fake news".

The most glaring problem with Trump is that he can't tell the difference between what really is fake news (i.e. The National Enquirer, which belongs in the fiction section of a bookshelf at Walmart or CVS) and what is real journalism. Trump has made himself such an easy target for the late night comics because he's so out of touch with reality. His Saturday statement was slightly off script ("many sides" was not in the statement, I've read), but his press flacks had to give him a new one on Monday so he could redeem himself. Shoot, he couldn't redeem green stamps if he tried when they were still popular.

The more he uses Twitter as a reactionary outlet for nonsense, the more Trump comes off as being disconnected from the country he's supposed to serve. Here's an idea. Get off Twitter, and spend your off-hours watching Green Acres reruns with Melania, since I think you two can relate to that.

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