Late-Night Hosts Rip Trump Over COVID

Late-night hosts skewered President Trump on Monday over a staged photo op meant to show him working inside Walter Reed Military Medical Hospital; his decision to ride past supporters in an SUV, potentially exposing Secret Service members to the coronavirus; and his assurance that Americans are "gonna beat" the virus. Some key points from Jimmy Fallon, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, and Steven Colbert:

• Fallon focused on photos, taken minutes apart, seeming to show Trump working in different rooms at Walter Reed. One showed him signing a blank piece of paper. "People are saying that he's just writing his name on a blank piece of paper. But that's not true. That's not a blank piece of paper. That’s just his entire plan to stop COVID,” the Tonight Show host quipped, per the Washington Post. As for Trump's return to the White House, Fallon said it was probably safe "mostly because everyone at the White House already has the virus."

• "It's almost like the writers of 2020 didn't know how to wrap the story up so they were just like 'Uh, and then they all get coronavirus. The end,'" said Noah of the Daily Show. "A massive outbreak at the White House is not karma, it's consequences," he went on. "It's not karma to get hit by lightning when you’re standing on the roof of a skyscraper holding a metal rod while there's lightning." He also took issue with Trump's claim that Americans are "gonna beat" the virus. "As long as you can take your private helicopter from your home hospital to an even better hospital, you'll be great," Noah said.
• Meyers echoed that. "It's easy to say don't be afraid to jump out of this airplane when you're the only one with a parachute," the Late Night host said, per Deadline. "You have the best taxpayer funded medical care in the world." He also said Trump's suite at Walter Reed "cost more than the $750 you paid in taxes." He seemed amazed at the White House's Rose Garden ceremony introducing Amy Coney Barrett, where guests sat together without masks. "If there was an epidemic of bear attacks, these people would be running around in the woods wearing scarves made of sausage links," he quipped.
• Colbert noted "we have no idea when the president was first diagnosed." He also commented on a Sunday video in which Trump claimed he had "learned a lot about COVID." "Really? You're learning now?" Late Show host asked. He then imitated the president. "For the last eight months, I've heard about millions of people getting infected with COVID, hundreds of thousands of [them] dying. But how could I know these people were real if they weren't me?" he said. "But now they are me. My thoughts and prayers go to all of myself."

(More President Trump stories.)