The last time we saw Seth Meyers he was predicting the demise of Steve Bannon.
So much news has happened since then.
The Late Night host returned from a two-week vacation on Tuesday with “A Closer Look” at what he missed, tying together President Donald Trump’s response to Hurricane Harvey and his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
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“As his summer of near constant chaos ends, President Trump faces a series of challenges more difficult than any he has dealt with up to this point,” Meyers said. “So how has he responded? By threatening to deport hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans.”
After playing a clip of Trump bragging about the size of the crowd that showed up to hear him speak in Texas this past week, Meyers asked, “What is wrong with you? You’re the president, not a stand-up comic.”
But it was Trump’s betrayal of the DREAMers that had Meyers most fired up in his first show back, highlighting the paramedic work of Jesus Contreras, who saved lives in Houston during the hurricane and its aftermath, but could be deported if the Trump administration succeeds in scrapping DACA.
“Trump’s decision throws the lives of nearly 800,000 Americans who were brought here as children, and who work here and go to school here, into chaos,” Meyers said, pointing out that Trump “hid behind” Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who made the official announcement to press earlier in the day.
Calling DACA recipients “as American as everyone else living here,” Meyers said Trump “once again proved himself to be a liar” after previously promising to protect them. Trump “backed himself into a corner by catering to the racial resentments of his base,” he added, and is now “needlessly throwing the lives of hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans into chaos.”
Meyers did not put much hope into Congress, which now must act to replace DACA in the next six months to prevent the mass deportations. “Republicans now treat phone calls with the president the way the rest of us treat phone calls with our grandparents,” he joked.
President Trump’s “cruel and capricious policy” on the DREAMers is “supported neither by a majority of voters nor leaders of his own party,” the host said. So why are Republicans still standing by him? In the words of GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, he quoted, “He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
