-Good evening.
I'm Seth Meyers. This is "Late Night."
We hope you're doing well. And now, if you don't mind,
I'm going to get to the news. Former President Trump held
a campaign event in Michigan yesterday, and
law enforcement officers stood behind him
during his speech, I guess, to make sure
he didn't flee the country? [ Laughter ] Former President Trump yesterday
criticized President Biden for proclaiming Easter Sunday
as Transgender Day of Visibility and said, "Such
total disrespect to Christ
ians. And if you're going
to disrespect Christians, you might as well make
some money off it." [ Laughter ] At his rally yesterday
in Michigan, former President Trump said,
"I do great with the suburban housewives."
In fact, he recently found out that was
his most-viewed category. [ Laughter ] [ Chuckles ] And that's the picture they use. A friend told me.
[ Laughter ] Former President Trump's
campaign is reportedly trying to host a fundraiser in New York in an effort to one-up
President Biden's
star-studded event last week
at Radio City. And so far,
they've already booked major New York celebrities
like the Naked Cowboy, Pizza Rat, and
Rudy, AKA Pasta Rat. [ Laughter ] Business Insider published
an article yesterday titled "The unspoken rules about
how to behave on a superyacht." Rule number one -- "If you see this man,
no, you didn't." [ Laughter ] New York Mayor Eric Adams
today met with religious leaders
on Staten Island, and he covered the whole
spectrum from Roman Catholic
to Iri
sh Catholic. [ Laughter ] In honor of next week's
total solar eclipse, Krispy Kreme will offer a glazed
doughnut that is dipped with black chocolate icing
and topped with sprinkles, buttercream frosting,
and an Oreo. And after a dozen of those,
you'll also block out the sun. [ Laughter ] A man in the Cayman Islands
recently found a message in a bottle
that was written in 2021, giving a unique insight into
what life was like that year. [ Laughter ] And finally,
officials in Kyle, Texas, recently
announced
that the city is attempting to set the Guinness World Record
for the largest gathering of people named Kyle, which would overtake
the current record-holder -- any Dave Matthews concert.
[ Laughter ] And that was the monologue,
everybody. We are off and running because we got a great show
for you tonight. He's an Emmy Award-winning
writer and comedian you know
from "The Carmichael Show," his incredible stand-up special
"Rothaniel." His show "Jerrod Carmichael
Reality Show" is out now on
HBO
and streams on Max. Jerrod Carmichael is back,
everybody. So excited
every time he joins us. [ Cheers and applause ] She is the host of "The 11th
Hour with Stephanie Ruhle," which airs weeknights
at 11:00 on MSNBC. Stephanie Ruhle will
be joining us. [ Cheers and applause ] Their album "Townie"
is out Friday. X Ambassadors are back
on the show to perform for us. But before we get to all
of our wonderful guests, Donald Trump
held campaign events in Wisconsin and Michigan
on Tuesday, where he
and his supporters
once again tried to rewrite history by claiming
Americans were better off when Trump was president. Meanwhile, President Biden faced
yet another sizable protest vote over his handling
of the war in Gaza. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." [ Theme music plays ] [ Cheers and applause ] Donald Trump does not have
a discernible policy agenda. The average voter would be
hard-pressed to identify a single thing
he would do as president to make their lives better
on any
issue, ranging from jobs
to healthcare. Even his position
on immigration is incoherent. -Donald Trump is back
on the campaign trail tonight, trying to rally support in
two critical battleground states he lost in 2020 -- Michigan
and Wisconsin. -So far, it has, again,
just been him doubling down on his anti-immigration rhetoric and promising the expansion
of these hard-line policies. -If your constitutional rights
have been violated, we will defend you. If you have illegal
aliens invading your h
ome, we will deport you.
-Wait. [ Laughter ] If illegal aliens are invading
my home, you'll deport me? So, they get my home? Do they get my show, too? It wouldn't be the first time
an immigrant has come here and stolen one
of our late-night talk shows. Yeah.
[ Laughter ] "Last Week Tonight"?
That doesn't even make sense. Speak English, dude.
[ Laughter ] And then what happens to me? Like, where do I get deported? Can I at least pick the country? Ooh, can it be a country where I'm already really
good
at the accent, so I can blend in
with the locals, like Australia? [ Clears throat ]
[ Laughter ] [ Australian accent ] I'm
as Australian as a dingo drinking a Foster's
and playing a didgeridoo. Crikey.
[ Laughter ] [ Clears throat ]
[ Laughter ] [ Normal voice ] Trump
doesn't want to fix immigration. He just wants to scare people,
as evidenced by the way he torpedoed
a bipartisan border compromise while his aides draw up plans for mass deportations,
raids, and detention camps. There's only
one policy
he seems absolutely clear on. -When I win,
you are all getting tax cuts and you're getting
a brand-new Trump economic boom. And that's where we were headed.
[ Cheers and applause ] -We were headed for
an economic boom when you left office?
He's doing that thing again where he pretends
the last year of his presidency didn't happen, like a Bill Cosby
biography that ends in 2014. [ Laughter ] I can't believe
I have to say this, but COVID happened
and it was bad. The economy crashed, and
people
were locked inside their homes. I did this show in an attic, and I remember
because it's still my attic, I'll say to my kids, "Hey,
remember when daddy did a show up there?"
And they say, "Oh, we thought you
just went up there to drink." And I say, "I went there
for my job, not to drink." And they say, "We thought
your job was drinking." And I said, "Based on what?" And they said, "Rihanna,
Dua Lipa, and Kelly Clarkson." I said, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." [ Laughter ] "Yeah, that's fair." Tr
ump and his goons
do this at all their rallies, or in their softball
interviews on Fox News. They try to Jedi-mind-trick
everyone into thinking
the year 2020 never happened. Here's Arkansas governor
and former Trump press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Fox,
acting like none of that ever happened. -This is a very clear contrast. You have one person
who was a president that had a tremendous
and successful record, and one that has a record
of complete disaster. -I can't believe
I'm saying this
, but I agree
with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We definitely had one of each
of those presidents, you know? [ Laughter ] Unemployment has been
at its lowest point in half a century,
under Joe Biden. Manufacturing jobs
are coming back, prescription drugs are cheaper, and billions in student-loan
debt has been wiped out. While Donald Trump deliberately
undermined the COVID response, tanked the economy,
oversaw a massive crime spike, and forced us all
to stay locked inside our homes while we watched "T
iger King"
on a loop and used Pottery Barn catalogs
as toilet paper. But clearly that's
what Sanders was talking about. See, bipartisan compromise is
possible. When we set aside our blinders
and look squarely at the facts, we can come together and
really understand one another. Oh, [bleep] she wasn't done
talking, was she? -President Trump is winning
because the contrast is clear. -Guys, you got to show me
the clip before the show! [ Laughter ]
If you think things were better under Trump,
you're
out of your mind. Also, you probably had
a great pandemic. She strikes me
as the kind of person who always has two generators and a bunker full of
toilet paper, just ready to go. [ Laughter ]
The point is, life was obviously demonstrably
worse under Trump's presidency, but he and his allies think they can just pretend
everything was fine. Sometimes they do it by conveniently changing
the timeframe. Normally, a presidential
candidate will ask if you're better off
than you were four years ago. Bu
t last night, Trump tried
this little rhetorical trick. -Three years ago,
we were a great nation, and we will soon be
a great nation again. -Yeah, if only we could have
whoever was president three years ago.
[ Laughter ] "Three years ago, we were all --
we were all..." [ Cheers and applause ] "We were all -- We were all
so happy three years ago. I can't remember
the details of why, but it felt as though
a darkness had been lifted." [ Laughter ] Three years ago was April 2021,
right? Joe Biden wa
s
in the white House. You were moping around
your chintzy swamp castle full of plastic surgeons
and their third wives, looking paler than the boxes
of classified documents you kept stuffed
in your bathroom. Even Trump knows he can't say we were
better off four years ago, so he tries to change it
to three years ago, but the numbers don't work.
He's like a kid in remedial math who gets the answer wrong just so he can spell funny words
on his calculator. Okay, Donald,
what's 2024 minus three? "Alri
ght, let's see here.
5-3-1-8-0-0-8. You're not gonna believe this.
I'm getting 'boobies' again." [ Laughter ] "I guess I have one
of those beautiful minds." [ Laughter ] Even Trump
and his gang of weirdos know things were demonstrably
worse four years ago than they are now.
And yet, Joe Biden can't seem to pull away from Trump
in the polls, thanks, in part,
to frustration among Biden's own voters over his handling
of the war in Gaza. Tens of thousands
of Democratic voters have gone to the polls
in primaries to send Biden a message that
they want him to change course. -In the key battleground
of Wisconsin, more than 47,000
Democratic voters cast a ballot for "Uninstructed"
as part of the movement to protest the president's
handling of the war in Gaza. Organizers doubled
their goal of 20,000 votes, which represented Biden's
margin of victory over Trump in that state
four years ago. -It's primary day
in New York state, and thousands
of registered Democrats are believed
to have left their
ballots blank in protest
of President Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. This protest vote movement began
in Michigan this year, with more than 100,000
Democratic voters checking the Uncommitted box
instead of voting for Biden. New York state doesn't allow
uncommitted votes in the primary nor write-in options,
so a campaign encouraging voters to submit blank ballots
gains traction. -Do you know how angry someone
has to be to leave their home, go to their local polling place, and wait in l
ine
just to submit a blank ballot? That's like driving
to your nearest Apple Store, waiting in line
all day for the new Vision Pro, and then, when you get to
the counter, screaming, "I don't want these!
I think these look stupid." [ Laughter ] By the way,
I want to say, I agree. You ever seen a dork using one
of these on the subway? They look like a French mime
wearing a snorkel mask. Except when they do this,
it's not an invisible wall. They're playing Wordle. [ Laughter ] [ Laughter ]
And by t
he way, the weather's been miserable
in New York City this week. I got soaked yesterday
on my way to the train, after an umbrella was stolen
by a rat. [ Laughter ] Saw a guy stabbing one of
those disgusting street puddles on my way to the train
yesterday. He just sank all the way
to the bottom. [ Laughter ] Can we look at that
photo again? I feel like that guy
has smiling eyes. [ Laughter ]
I feel like that guy that, like, his kink is sinking
in a street puddle. I feel like if
we went to graphic
s right now and we're like,
"Show me the whole head," that guy's like this. [ Laughter ] Also, can we go back to it
one more time? Like, I feel like it
should have been on a curb, where there maybe would be
a bigger pot-- Like where? So that's just a hole
in New York City. [ Laughter ] Also, why is he not blurry, and
everyone in the background... [ Laughter ] I don't think that
really happened. [ Laughter ] I think I just caught
myself in a lie. [ Laughter ] And yet voters still went to the
poll
s to submit blank ballots. They are understandably upset. Biden keeps claiming
he's frustrated with Netanyahu's
handling of the war, while simultaneously
sending more weapons to support that war, against the
wishes of majority of Americans. Back in February, Biden said he hoped
to see a ceasefire within days. And I remember him saying that,
because despite my best efforts, I was standing
right [bleep] there. [ Laughter ]
That ceasefire did not happen. And when Biden was asked again
just a few da
ys after that, he made it sound like
there wasn't much he could do. But what do you mean,
you're hopeful? You're the most powerful man
in the world, and you're talking about it like you're the manager
of the New York Mets. "I mean, I hope -- I hope
we win a few games. But, you know,
if it keeps raining, we might not lose that many."
[ Laughter ] You're the president. You can just say, "No
more funding, no more weapons." You call for a ceasefire. That's what a majority
of Americans want, includin
g the tens of thousands
of Democrats who are registering
protest votes in key battleground states. Thousands of Israelis
also took to the streets this week to protest
the Netanyahu government and call for a ceasefire
deal to free the hostages. As we've said on the show
before, there must be an immediate,
lasting ceasefire and the safe return
of all hostages. That's the loud-and-clear
message of these protest votes, and Biden must listen. Otherwise, he's at risk
of losing to someone whose preside
ncy was a...
-...complete disaster. This has been "A Closer Look." [ Theme music plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ] We'll be right back with
Jerrod Carmichael, everyone.
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