Jon Stewart on Trump assassination attempt: ‘We dodged a catastrophe’

Late-night hosts talk about the fallout from the assassination attempt on Donald Trump , the Republican national convention and Trump’s pick of JD Vance as his running mate.

The Daily Show

“What a terrible fucking week,” said Jon Stewart on Tuesday evening, a day after the Daily Show’s coverage of the Republican national convention was set to begin. Due to the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally over the weekend, which killed one man in the crowd, the show ditched live production plans in Milwaukee for its New York studio.

Stewart praised his production team for turning things around, and reflected on an “obviously terrifying and disorienting” weekend.

“I have a slight confession to make, and I’m not proud of this in any way, shape or form,” he said of the aftermath. “But I’m following social media during all this to find out who did it because it’s this pattern I feel like we now have in the country, when we hear about a horrific event. You’re on pins and needles in this sort of reverse demographic lottery to make sure that the psychopathic shooter doesn’t belong to one of your teams. You just sit there going, ‘Please, no Democrats, no liberals, no progressives.’

Related: Seth Meyers on Trump assassination attempt: ‘Poison to our democracy’

“And we’re all doing it,” he continued. “We’re all doing it because we have to know what our posture will be on the tragedy. Will it be an ‘I told you’ or perhaps a circumspect, ‘But let’s not rush to judgment, we shouldn’t generalize.’ And then it ends up being someone we can’t even figure out in the first place – a bullied loner, white guy, registered Republican, donated to a blue Pac, argued conservative causes.

“I don’t know what’s going on with this guy,” Stewart said of the shooter. “It’s a jump ball. We don’t know yet who’s got dibs, who wins, and none of us knows what’s going to happen next – other than there will be another tragedy in this country, self-inflicted, by us to us, and then we’ll have this feeling again.

“I remember it on 9/11, this disorienting ‘holy shit, stop the world, I would like to get off’ feeling,” Stewart added. “And in that moment, there will be some incredible Americans who, in the midst of it, for some unknown reason, rush towards it and get us back to some sort of equilibrium. And we’ll count on those folks to hold us together, again. And it does remind us that, by a hair’s breadth, we dodged a catastrophe .

“But it was still a tragedy,” he concluded, “because one of those first responders lost his life. His name was Corey Comperatore. He was a retired fire chief in the area. He had given his life in service to his community and he died literally shielding his family. He’s a reminder that in those moments of crisis, there are helpers and we can all make a choice to try and be one of those people.”

Stephen Colbert

On a live Late Show following the second day of the Republican convention, Stephen Colbert worried for the West Virginia governor Jim Justice’s bulldog Babydog, who made an appearance on stage. “You fools! You can’t have a dog at the same convention as Kristi Noem!” Colbert joked, referring to the South Dakota governor’s confession in her memoir that she killed her dog. “Run girl, run! Stay away from the gravel pit!”

This is not Babydog’s first brush with politics; she also served as the face of Justice’s vaccination initiative. “Really says something about this election when the dog believes more in science than the candidates,” said Colbert. “Is there anything in the rule book that says Babydog can’t run for president? She’s better than RFK Jr – she takes her worm medication.”

At around 9pm, Trump entered the arena “like Rocky Balboa, if Rocky fought for Russia”, Colbert joked. The former president was supposed to arrive later, but changed his schedule to hear his former rivals Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis endorse him in person.

“Yes, the former president changed his whole schedule so he could watch his defeated rivals forced to sing his praise, while he drank a Diet Coke made out of a goblet of Chris Christie’s skull,” Colbert laughed.

Colbert mocked Haley’s speech as: “I hate myself. There’s no other explanation. Thank you!”

Haley also “turned the ass-kissing up to 11” when she said: “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.”

“Seriously, question mark?” Colbert laughed. “Because I remember when you called him ‘unhinged’, exclamation point.”

Seth Meyers

And on Late Night, Seth Meyers noted that Trump picked the Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate, “despite the fact that Vance once called him a ‘moral disaster’, and said that he could be ‘America’s Hitler’. Damn, if he can say all that and still get picked for vice-president, I figure I’ve got a chance at secretary of state at least.”

Asked in a new interview how he would handle disagreements with Trump, Vance said “they would be dealt with in private”. “Said one man, ‘good luck with that!’” Meyers joked next to a photo of Mike Pence.

The New Jersey senator Bob Menendez was found guilty on all 16 counts in his federal corruption case, including bribery, extortion and wire fraud. “Or, as they call those in New Jersey, waste management,” Meyers quipped.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden spoke at the national convention for the NAACP in Las Vegas on Tuesday, “while every Republican was busy speaking at the national convention for the NAAWP”, Meyers joked.

At the Republican convention, the North Carolina lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, called Trump “the Braveheart of our time”.

“Personally, I think any similarity begins and ends with face paint,” Meyers said, referring to Trump’s fake tan.