Seth Meyers on JD Vance’s debate performance: ‘Brazen and shameless’

Late-night hosts talk JD Vance’s many lies during the vice-presidential debate and a new special counsel report detailing how Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election.

Seth Meyers

Donald Trump is “a bad liar”, said Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s Late Night, but he chose as his running mate “someone who is much more polished at it”. JD Vance, Ohio senator, is “brazen and shameless, but he’s admittedly very smooth. He’s like a slick used car dealer, and can be very convincing until you remember the car he’s trying to sell you is an AMC Gremlin with raccoons in the engine.”

For instance, during the vice-presidential debate on Tuesday evening, Vance claimed that he was not in favor of a national abortion ban, but did support a “minimum national standard”.

“That’s a ban,” Meyers corrected. “A ‘minimum national standard’ is just a bullshit way of describing a national abortion ban. It’s like when I go to the coffee shop on my block and they say they sell all-natural, gluten-free breakfast biscuits. That’s a cookie, dude. Except now you’ve guaranteed that my kids won’t stop asking me why they can’t have it.”

Vance has said multiple times that he favors a national abortion ban. On a rightwing podcast in 2022, he said: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”

“That’s what happens when you say yes to every rightwing podcast in the universe,” said Meyers. “JD Vance is on record contradicting every thing he says now. Politicians used to be worried about being caught on a hot mic. But now they go into every McMansion basement they can find like they’re on a hot mic scavenger hunt.”

Vance also refused to say whether Trump lost the 2020 election. When asked point blank by his opponent, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, Vance deflected with: “I’m focused on the future.”

“If you ask someone a straightforward question and they say ‘I’m focused on the future’ that’s how you know they’re caught in a lie,” said Meyers. “Vance may have delivered a slick performance last night, but it was just that – a performance.”

Stephen Colbert

“We are all still struggling to digest last night’s vice-presidential debate – which is surprising, because usually I have no trouble eating two slices of white bread,” joked Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night.

The Late Show host described the debate as a “frosty cup of ZzzQuil”, as the two politicians performed civility and appeared to frequently agree with each other.

The Atlantic described the debate as “a vision of what American politics could be without the distorting gravitational field generated by Donald Trump”.

“I would love that,” said Colbert, “but here’s the thing: Donald Trump hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still the main character. This is like a scene from It without Pennywise on camera, and everyone is suddenly like, ‘Welp, guess there’s no more scary clowns in Derry. Ooh, free sewer balloon!’”

Colbert took particular aim at Vance’s answer to a question on Obamacare, which Trump tried to destroy numerous times: “I think you could make a really good argument that [Trump] salvaged Obamacare, which was doing disastrously until Donald Trump came along.”

“That kind of junior high debate team sophistry is exactly the worst kind of behavior that intelligent people use to justify evil,” added Colbert. “You know, when you think about it, it could be argued that Godzilla really spearheaded Tokyo’s urban renewal.”

Colbert was also incensed at Vance’s characterization of January 6: “It’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th.”

“Yeah, 14 days after his plot to overthrow the election ended in a violent coup that failed,” said Colbert. “That’s like saying to your ex: ‘Barbara, I think it’s rich that you’re calling me psychotically obsessed with our relationship, when I left your and Brad’s wedding peacefully. You’re the one who won’t stop talking about me setting fire to the DJ.’”

Jimmy Kimmel

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel looked ahead to election day: “We are 34 days away from Trump saying the election was rigged, just as he did four years ago.” Trump’s efforts to overturn the election four years ago are detailed in a new report from special counsel Jack Smith.

The judge overseeing the January 6 case in Washington unsealed a 165-page court filing containing a “mountain” of testimony and evidence against Trump. “All the stuff we know happened, we now have in writing,” said Kimmel.

The filing lays out “the increasingly desperate ways Trump tried to steal the election”, Kimmel explained. “You know, sometimes I would wonder, does Trump really believe that this election was stolen from him? And the answer is no, he doesn’t. The plan all along was to declare himself the winner even he if wasn’t, which he did. And then when he realized he was going to lose, he made up these claims of fraud.

“He called governors and election officials,” he continued. “He hammered Mike Pence. He deliberately spread lies, even though he privately admitted they were crazy lies. He was directly involved in the fake elector scheme. And he stole all the Oreos from the White House snack cabinet.”

The report also detailed just how many times Trump pressured Mike Pence to try to decertify the election, though he had no authority to do so. “There were meetings, phone calls, text messages – Pence was basically Trump’s Baby Reindeer,” Kimmel joked.