Nobody in the media got a pass from Seth Meyers on Wednesday night.
In his latest home edition of “A Closer Look,” the Late Night host broke down all of the latest news about the novel coronavirus pandemic, including the way typically critical reporters praised President Donald Trump’s new “tone” on the crisis at his daily briefing on Tuesday.
“Because he managed to restrain himself for an hour, after weeks of lies and serial failures that led us to this harrowing moment,” Meyers said, “some in the media were actually gullible enough after four years to give Trump credit for his change of tone.” He singled out MSNBC’s Brian Williams and CNN’s Erin Burnett and Jim Acosta, among others, for lavishing praise on the president for momentarily taking the situation seriously.
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“My God, these people could be fooled by Jeffrey Dahmer,” he said, imagining them reporting, “This is not Jeffrey Dahmer the crazed murderer. This was a more serious Dahmer, just quietly home cooking a meal for one.”
“Of course it was a ‘different Donald Trump,’” Meyers added, quoting Acosta. “It’s a different Donald Trump every night, which means it’s always the same Donald Trump. He never fundamentally changes who he is as a person, he just swings wildly back and forth from one extreme to the other.”
But the host then pointed out that Trump “isn’t the only one trying to memory-hole his response to the crisis.” Which brought him to Fox News host Sean Hannity, who this week had the gall to accuse other members of the media of spreading conspiracy theories about the virus.
“Dude, all you do is spread conspiracy theories,” Meyers said of Hannity, calling him “Alex Jones without the brain pills.” He listed off the many conspiracies pushed by Fox News over the years, before arriving at Hannity’s original position on the coronavirus in which he claimed that Democrats were trying to “bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”
And yet, just over a week later, Hannity insisted that he’s always taken the issue “seriously” and has “never called the virus a hoax.”
After playing the two clips back to back, Meyers said, “Man, that takes some balls.”
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