Late-night comedians used to be funny once upon a time. But these days, what passes for “funny” has a way of just being plain old nasty.
Late-night shows like The Tonight Show have an honorable tradition of using current affairs for source material, and to be sure, occasionally politics winds up being the crux of a punch line or two. But when writers and hosts make fun of the same American commander-in-chief day-in and day-out, not only does it start to feel tired, but it becomes terribly predictable.
To be sure, President Trump and his Twitter account are certainly able to produce a few chuckles here and there, but the jokes of late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon have taken on a mean-spirited tone as of late that seems to hint at more than just the use of a few presidential slip-ups or poor wordings as fodder for their comedic cannon fire. A liberal Hollywood agenda seems to be at work that’s cut from the same cloth and pattern as can be seen on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, where Alec Baldwin’s long-running impression of the president continued to be run long past its sell-by date after the fourth or fifth time it was seen.
In this clip from Fox & Friends, the hosts talk to comedian and actress Heather McDonald, who gives her take on why these late-night shows have chosen to take such a highly politicized approach and the effect that it’s had on audiences.