Trump Can't Hide Delicate Ego While Railing Against Late Night TV (Good Luck, The Next 4 Years!)
President-elect Donald Trump is known for his late-night social media diatribes railing against whatever TV show he happens to be watching. We know he loves watching people talk about himself — even if it's not in the most forgiving light — as evidenced by his 1 AM post on Truth Social on January 14, criticizing Seth Meyers and NBC. "How bad is Seth Meyers on NBC," he began before branding Meyers with a unique nickname, writing, "I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night ... every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is." He went on to denounce late-night shows, which he has long wanted to destroy, calling them "simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican Party."
Late-night TV hosts like John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and, of course, Meyers are no strangers to using Trump as the butt of their jokes, even if it's caused a drop in viewership for others, like Jimmy Kimmel. This was no different on the January 14 episode of "Late Night with Seth Meyers," which is one of the best celebrity talk shows hands down. Meyers opened his "A Closer Look" segment by saying Trump "has no fixed principles or core beliefs or coherent ideas or constructive solutions or plans or proposals or policies or values or thoughts of any kind" and called him an "intellectual roomba." He later played old Trump debate clips over a video of a Roomba bumping into a wall and chair, demonstrating how easily Trump can change his mind. Perhaps most damning was Meyers' comment that Trump only watches TV and rants about it on social media, which is exactly what he did while catching Meyers' show.
Trump and Meyers have butted heads several times throughout the years
The January 14 "Late Night with Seth Meyers" episode wasn't the first time Seth Meyers has launched jokes President-elect Donald Trump's way, and it surely won't be the last. He's mocked Trump for years now, even before he was elected president for the first time in 2016. "Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke," the "SNL" alum quipped at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner (via YouTube).
The Correspondents Dinner put Meyers in Trump's crosshairs, and Trump continually took to X, formerly Twitter, over the years to mock Meyers, sometimes using his favorite "marbles" insult. "That Seth Meyers is hosting the Emmy Awards is a total joke. He is very awkward with almost no talent. Marbles in his mouth!" he tweeted in 2014. He also called out Seth Meyers in another post about the 2018 Correspondents Dinner, where Michelle Wolf performed. "The filthy 'comedian' totally bombed (couldn't even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance)."
Meyers has been unyielding in his late-night rebukes of Trump in the face of his petty insults, as have his fellow late-night hosts. "[He] turned himself into an object of ridicule," Meyers told Politico in 2018. "This is a case of judo, where you're using someone else's momentum against them. It's not like we're attacking. We're just sort of like steering his weight and letting him take himself down."