-Good evening.
I'm Seth Meyers. This is "Late Night."
We hope you're doing well. And now if you don't mind,
we're gonna get to the news. While speaking yesterday
about his efforts to lower healthcare costs with
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, President Biden said,
quote, "Bernie and I have been doing
this work a long time. I know we don't look like it." And boy, did they have
a good laugh about that. [ Laughter ] In an interview yesterday, Republican Congresswoman
Marjorie Taylor Greene criticiz
ed House Speaker
Mike Johnson's proposal for Ukraine aid and said, quote, "We don't know who
Mike Johnson is anymore." Well, I guess I'm a trendsetter because I never knew
who Mike Johnson was in the first place. Hedge fund billionaire
John Paulson is set to host a fundraiser on Saturday
in Palm Beach for former President Trump, which will feature
former first lady Melania Trump. Oh, nice. That'll give these two
some time to catch up. [As Trump] Mel, you look great. Have you been working out? [N
ormal voice]
Ahead of this weekend's Trump fundraiser in Palm Beach, organizers are offering
attendees the opportunity to sit at former President
Trump's table during dinner if they donate
more than $824,000. And while it's a lot of money, it's still Eric's only chance. [ Laughter ] Former President Trump posted
on Truth Social and bragged
about the platform's success, and it immediately went viral. [ Laughter ] A Florida man was recently
charged with reckless driving after he allegedly put
his
car in cruise control and stood up
through the vehicle's sunroof. Oh, come on, it's Florida. I'm surprised they
don't have a lane for that. [ Laughter ] A woman who was rock climbing
with her cat in Colorado was recently rescued after
they got stuck on a mountain. Okay, well, after
SHE got stuck on a mountain. Cat was like,
"You mind if I go?" [ Laughter ] "I can get off a mountain." [ Laughter ] In honor
of National Burrito Day, the restaurant chain Qdoba
is offering customers a free burrito wi
th the purchase
of an entree and a drink. Ah, yes, Mexico
may have invented the burrito, but it was America that made it a side dish. [ Laughter ] According to new research, brown rats arrived
in North America in 1740, or about 40 years earlier
than previously believed. This week, on a very special "Finding Your Roots." [ Laughter ] And finally,
according to new data, crime in New York subway
stations decreased by 23% compared to last year, because even criminals have
places they got to be. And
that was a monologue,
everybody! We are off and running, and we
got a great one for you tonight. [ Cheers and applause ] She is one of the all-time
greatest SNL cast members, and this weekend
she's going to be back hosting for the fifth time. Kristen Wiig is here, everybody! How about that? And he's a fantastic comedian,
actor, and director you know from "Trainwreck,"
"Sleepwalk With Me," "The Old Man and The Pool,"
and so many others. He's the subject of the
documentary special "Good One: A Sho
w About Jokes,"
streaming now on Peacock. My very good friend
Mike Birbiglia is also joining us. But before we get to
all of that, Donald Trump's net worth plunged
by more than $1 billion after the stock price of his
struggling social media company fell by more than 20% amid huge losses
in a legal battle between Trump and his co-founders, and now investors
are betting millions that the company will collapse. For more on this,
it's time for "A Closer Look." ♪♪ Presidents from both parties love to
brag about
the success of the stock market. In fact, Trump cares so much about
the stock market's performance, he's tried to claim credit
for its success after he left office. But even his biggest boosters
like Fox host Maria Bartiromo aren't buying it. -The Biden team can say, well, if things are so bad, how come
the stock market is on a roll? -Because they think
I'm going to be elected. -You think
the stock market's rallying because people think
you'll be elected? -I do, yeah. -Even Maria Bar
tiromo
doesn't believe it. Look at her face. She's so shocked,
she turned into Rudy. By the way,
if you invested $20 in us using the Rudy Eyes graphic
five years ago, you'd be a millionaire
right now. That's the face you make when a buddy tells you
the Mets are going to win it all this year. "You think the Mets are
going to win the World Series?" "I do, yeah.
They started 0-5 on purpose, to lull the rest of the league
into a false sense of security. And then when everyone's
guard is down, they p
ounce --
and they just lost again. Oh, [bleep]. It's all part of the plan!
[Bleep]." All presidents do this. Trump just takes it
to absurd extremes, as he always does. But the stock market is
not the real economy. For one thing, the wealthiest 10% of Americans
own 93% of the stocks. Although you don't need a study
to tell you that. Just go to any Manhattan
dinner party. I can't tell you
the number of times I've sat next
to someone talking to me about margin calls
and options trading, and I don't
know
what the [bleep] any of those terms mean, which is why whenever I get
invited to a dinner party now, I always RSVP with a note that says, "Please sit
me next to your dumbest guest." "Oh, and there's my nametag. Oh, hello, Mr. Mayor." "Are you going to eat
your roll? If not, I'm going to take
it home in my pocket." The stock market does not fully
reflect the underlying health of the economy, and there's no
better current example of that than Trump Media and Technology
Group, the parent comp
any of Trump's
tiny and struggling Twitter ripoff, Truth Social. When the company
went public last week, it soared to shocking highs, despite the fact that
it has lost money and users, which in turn,
massively inflated Trump's net worth on paper. -More breaking news
tonight involving Donald Trump. His media company, which
of course includes Truth Social, soaring in its first day
of trading on NASDAQ, surging 56% at one point
during trading to $78 a share before closing at $58. -Trump now owns 60
%
of the new Trump Media company, or roughly $78 million a share, a stake that is,
on paper at this hour, worth $4.6 billion. -The higher the stock goes, the higher that
Donald Trump's net worth is. At yesterday's close, Trump's net worth,
according to Bloomberg, a little over $7 billion. It went up by $4 billion
on Monday alone. -That's right. Trump's net worth went up
by $4 billion in one day. Here's actual footage of me
waking up to that news. -He can't keep getting away
with this! [ Laughter
] -Now, to be clear,
that's only on paper. Those are unrealized gains. Donald Trump can't spend or borrow against
any of that money yet, although you know Donald Trump
doesn't see it that way. When Trump heard that his net
worth increased by $4 billion, he immediately ran out,
bought a Ferrari, a Scrooge McDuck money pool, and
a beautiful new head of hair. The only -- the only way Trump would admit
the money wasn't real is if Rudy asked Trump to pay
his outstanding legal bills. "I made $4 bil t
his week, baby." "That's great, boss.
Now can you finally pay me?" "Actually, Rudy,
that's just on paper. Those are unrealized gains that I legally cannot spend
or borrow against until the six-month
lockup period has expired, or until the board votes
to allow me to cash out. I'm heartbroken,
Rudy, I really am." "Oh, I'll be fine, boss. Seth
Meyers gave me his dinner roll." [ Laughter ] Again, this is
all paper money so far. It's not real yet. Just as easily
as Trump's net worth went up, it can c
ome crashing back down, which is partially
what happened on Monday when the stock price fell. -Truth Social hit the NASDAQ
last week with a bang, but now it's taking blows. The stock,
which is listed as DJT, lost roughly $4 billion in value
in its first week of trading. -The company's
stock fell more than 20%, and Donald Trump's net worth
fell more than $1 billion. -That's right, his net worth
fell by $1 billion in one day. He basically lost the entirety
of Taylor Swift's net worth. And by the w
ay,
she got that money. That's not theoretical. She can buy private jets
with her debit card. And she made that money
from writing and performing, not from slapping her name on
a money-losing Twitter ripoff. Although, she could
definitely do that. I'd be first in line to sign up for a new
social media app called TayTok. I'd do that. I would do that. So, why did the stock
suddenly start to tank? Well, reality probably
caught up with it. The company's value
was completely divorced from its underly
ing business. -So here's the latest numbers
that are concerning investors. Truth Social owner Trump Media
lost $58 million last year, and it generated
very, very little revenue, just $4.1 million in revenue. And some of this
is not shocking, because we know that
Truth Social is struggling. I mean, it is shrinking. Monthly active US users
on iOS and Android down 51% year-over-year. I think all of this just
underscores why there's a lot of warnings
out there about this stock, right? One professor
told me
it's a bubble. Another basically called it
a meme stock. -There's no way Trump knows
what a meme stock is. He probably doesn't
even know the word "meme." "I own it
and it has my name in it. It's a me-me stock." So the company lost $58 million
and more than half of its users. And yet, when it went public, it was first valued
at over $7 billion. I'm sure you're asking,
how is that possible? Well, there's an actually
perfectly reasonable explanation, but involves a lot
of complex financial
jargon and some very technical,
obscure macroeconomic principles that will take me a long time
to explain, so just do your best
to follow along. Ready? The stock market is bull[bleep]. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] By calling it a meme stock, experts are basically
comparing the Trump stock to GameStop, a stock whose
price gets inflated beyond its underlying value
by online investors. But in the case of GameStop, there was at least
an actual business. Here's how one commentator on the infa
mous
WallStreetBets subreddit explained the situation. "If you invest in this
on a long enough timeline, you will lose everything. If you think Donald Trump
is going to create an income positive
social media platform, you are
an absolute [bleep] moron." Now, in fairness, that's not just some
dude's opinion. He's quoting
the company slogan. Agree or disagree, you gotta love the harsh wisdom
of Reddit investors. Reporters and financial experts in the mainstream media are all
carefully parsing thei
r words and saying stuff like, "The
fundamentals of the business do not support the
current market capitalization of the publicly traded
securities." If the dudes on Reddit ran CNN,
the headline would say, "This [bleep] is worthless,
mother[bleep]." And here's the real tell that everyone knows Trump's
stock is actually worthless. Investors are
betting against it. The New York Times
reported this week that "Traders Are
Betting Millions That Trump Media Will Tumble." In fact, the parent company
of
Truth Social is a popular target
for short-sellers. Short-sellers bet that
the price of a stock will fall. They do that by
borrowing shares of a company and selling them
into the market, hoping to buy them
back later at a lower price, before returning the shares
to the lender and pocketing the difference
as profit. Again, there's no way
Trump understands any of that. I guarantee
when Trump's aides told him investors were shorting
his stock, he thought they meant that short
people were buying hi
s stock. "Look, I don't like the man, but I'll gladly take
an investment from Ron DeSantis. He can keep his earnings
in his little white boots. We love the little
white boots." And yeah, as if Trump stock
needed any more reasons to go down in flames, on top of everything else, it is now the subject
of a contentious legal battle in which Trump
is basically trying to kick out the co-founders of the company so he can keep the stock
all to himself. -The former president is suing
the co-founders of T
ruth Social in an effort to prevent them
from keeping shares in the company's stock. The former president's
attorneys claim that Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss
made a series of costly mistakes that delayed the company
from going public. Trump's legal team asked
the judge to strip both men of their shares in the company. This after Litinsky and Moss filed a lawsuit in February
claiming that Trump and other leaders schemed
to dilute their shares prior to a merger, which would allow
the company to then
go public. -How many court battles
can one person have?! This guy is in court
more than this lady. Here's what happened. These guys essentially
brought the deal to Trump. They took the company public,
and in the process, they basically dumped
a few billion in paper money into his lap. And Trump is now thanking them
by suing to take their stock away. Dude, just take the [bleep] W.
Your company is worthless. This is like Alaska Airlines
suing the passenger who sat next to the open door. "You shou
ld be thanking us
for the extra leg room." The stock market is a casino. It's not the real economy. Trump's dumb
social media company is just the latest example of that. And now investors
are betting millions that the stock will collapse. It's kind of like that scene
from "The Social Network," except in this case, the only thing cooler
than Trump losing $1 million is Trump losing -- -$1 billion. This has been "A Closer Look." ♪♪ We'll be right back
with Kristen Wiig, everybody!
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