Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers celebrated a victory for reproductive rights in America a month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, as Kansas voters overwhelmingly decided to keep abortion protections in their state constitution. The defeat of a referendum to remove those rights from the constitution, 59 percent to 41 percent, was “especially heartening,” Meyers said on Wednesday’s Late Night, “given that anti-abortion activists used every shady tactic you could think of and they still lost.”.
The wording of the referendum was “intentionally confusing,” Meyers explained, reading aloud the vague paragraph. “Wow, I can’t believe they hired the same guy who wrote the iTunes user agreement,” he joked. “I hope the voters gave the choices yes, no, and what the hell?
“This reads like the introduction to a college paper that you start writing at 3 a.m. the night before it’s due.”
Also, “Kansas voters saw through the bullshit and overwhelmingly supported abortion rights,” despite misleading text messages from a Republican group. The night before the election, the group sent voters a text that read: “Women in KS are losing their choice on reproductive rights. Voting YES on the amendment will give women a choice. Vote YES to protect women’s health”. (Voting yes would do the opposite).
“You know, as a rule of thumb, if your best strategy is to try to trick people into accidentally voting for you, that’s probably a sign that you’re the bad guys,” Meyers said. “It’s like in order to get people to watch this show online, we title every YouTube video ‘click here for free boner pills!’
“Last night was both a promising sign of progress in the fight to safeguard abortion rights, on the one hand, and a perfect case study of what the GOP has become, on the other.” , he concluded.
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert also delved into the Kansas referendum on the Late Show, calling the 59% to 41% decision “kind of shocking, the enormity of this victory. This is just not a victory. This is a hit by Kans.
“And may I remind you that Kansas is such a bright red state that it looks like me after 30 seconds on the beach,” he added.
“Note that this outburst came after a series of dirty tricks by Republicans in Kansas,” he continued. “First, they made the wording of the ballot measure more confusing, then they sent text messages to voters right before the election” that misleadingly equated a yes vote with a personal choice.
“They tried to trick them into voting the wrong way,” Colbert said. “This is the most misleading political message since 1952’s ‘I like Ike … too much to burden him with the presidency: vote for Stevenson.'”
In other news, Colbert pointed to a new study that found eating processed foods like ice cream impairs brain function. “Stop it, science,” pleaded Colbert. “Stop studying things. That’s why people turn on you and start eating horseradish. What’s next? Do puppy kisses cause herpes? Chris Evans exposure is depleting the ozone layer? Just let us have good things!”
Trevor Noah
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah looked at a startling moment during the defamation trial of Alex Jones, a far-right commentator and a “man who makes Donald Trump look like a reasonable human being.” During Wednesday’s hearing, Jones, on trial for defamation after he repeatedly and systematically called Sandy Hook in 2012 to fire a hoax, revealed at the bar that his lawyer had mistakenly emailed evidence of the prosecution that proved he had committed perjury.
Noah snapped at the images of a visibly red-faced and nervous Jones facing the stand with his lies. “He was so shocked that he started turning into all the emojis,” Noah said. “At one point he even tried to give himself Covid,” he added, pointing to a moment when Jones coughed in the stands. “Did you see that? ‘Oh, I can’t talk, you know the disease I said is fake? Yes, I have it, I already have it.
“You know you’re in trouble when the truth drowns you out like an episode of Hot Ones,” Noah continued.
“But you realize this moment is huge, because it shows that Alex Jones probably committed perjury. Which means Alex Jones is lying about things,” he joked. “Yeah, I know, that’s shocking, because does that mean that… airplane chemtrails don’t make frogs gay? Was that a lie too?”