Late-night shows that went live after President Trump’s State of the Union didn’t distinguish themselves

The Washington Post

The live reaction after Trump’s speech on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper mostly featured jokes that could’ve been written or were likely written hours before the speech, as Hank Stuever points out. The talk show hosts instead left it up to their guest for real-time analysis of the speech. Stuever adds: “Comedy remains the ideal refuge in all this — whether practiced professionally or just part of the general snark of resistance. Your joke about Melania Trump’s white pantsuit is as good as mine (so too our mutual yuks about official Democratic rebuttlizer Joe Kennedy III’s lip-balm addiction), but the hope remains that the pros will be more funny than any of us, which is not always the case.” Yet Trump’s “long and boring” speech, says Stuever, “failed to provide the right sort of raw meat for the drooling hounds of late-night.” ALSO: Jimmy Kimmel’s taped episode ended up being the most fascinating late-night show of the night.