It’s the type of story Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler would have been all over in their Saturday Night Live days. The former Weekend Update co-anchors came together on Wednesday for an all-new edition of their classic segment “Really?!?”—this time in response to the pro-Donald Trump protesters who interrupted a performance of Shakespeare in the Park’s Julius Caesar last week.
Poehler kicked things off: “Really, protesters? Let me get this straight. You waited in line to get tickets to a play you already hated. And then you watched it for three hours. And then you ran on stage to protest, but not the president, someone who was dressed like the president, from getting pretend stabbed with a fake knife.” She commended them for not just yelling at their TV, but getting out of the house to “yell at a play.”
“And really, if this portrayal was offensive to anyone, it’s Caesar,” Meyers added. “Caesar was beloved by the Roman Empire. To put it another way, he won the popular vote.” You could tell the this Caesar wasn’t really Trump, he added, because the Senate stabbed him instead of just “passing a really shitty health care bill.”
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All the protesters achieved with their stunt, Poehler said, was give audience members “an anecdote to tell at their fancy, liberal cocktail parties!”
Meyers also went after the Public Theater for the “hacky” move of making a Donald Trump Julius Caesar in the first place. “If you want to see a Shakespearean drama based on Donald Trump, just watch CNN,” he said. And to those who think it was “terrible” for the protesters to interrupt the play, Meyers said, “You also have to think it’s terrible to interrupt Ann Coulter, even though she’s terrible.”
“Liberals cannot by hypocrites when it comes to free speech,” Poehler added. “Neither can conservatives.” That means you have to be OK with Ted Nugent saying President Obama can “suck my machine gun.” Using her own free speech, Poehler said, “You suck, Ted Nugent. Your songs suck. And ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ is such a dumbass, stupid song, you dick!”
Finally, to the conservative who said they want to put on a play where Hillary Clinton is burned at the stake for being a witch, Poehler had one message. “Guess what, bro? You can’t burn Hillary at the stake,” she said. “She’s already been burned twice. 2008 and 2016. My bitch is Teflon now!”
