Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler resurrect 'Really!?!' to skewer pro-Trump protesters
Former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update co-anchors Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler resurrected one of their most popular segments on Wednesday night to skewer pro-Donald Trump protesters who interrupted the Trump-inspired Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar.
“Really, protesters? Let me get this straight. You waited in line to get tickets to a play you already hated. And then you watched it for three hours. And then you ran on stage to protest — but not the president, but someone who was dressed like the president, from getting pretend stabbed with a fake knife,” Poehler said during “Really!?! With Seth and Amy” on Meyers’ Late Night. “Really? I commend you. If you want to change this country, you just can’t sit around your house, yelling at the TV. You have to get out there and yell at a play. Really? You know what? You’ve made actors so upset, that Daniel Day-Lewis has quit now. You made Lincoln quit!”
Added Meyers with incredulity, “And really, if this portrayal was offensive to anyone, it’s Caesar. Caesar was beloved by the Roman Empire. To put it another way, he won the popular vote. He was so popular we don’t use his name for pizza, we use it for pizza-pizza. The only thing Caesar and Trump have in common is they both have casinos named after them. And really you could tell that Caesar wasn’t really Trump because the Senate stabbed him instead of just passing as sh–ty health care bill.”
Meyers also poked at the Public Theater, which produced the production of Julius Caesar that drove some conservatives to interrupt the show in protest because of its Trump similarities. “I don’t think it was offensive to have a Donald Trump Caesar, but it was a little hacky. I mean, really, if you want to see a Shakespearean drama based on Trump just watch CNN,” Meyers said. “Now if you wanted to do Of Mice and Men with Pence as George and Trump as Lenny, I would pay to see that. ‘Tell me about the rabbits, Mike. I hear they’re the best rabbits.'”
In discussing the protests, Meyers and Poehler noted how “free speech isn’t just about protecting speech you like,” citing Ann Coulter as an example as well as Ted Nugent.
“Liberals cannot be hypocrites when it comes to free speech. Neither can conservatives,” Poehler said. “Don’t whine about this, be okay with it when Ted Nugent says, ‘President Obama can suck my machine gun.’ And using my free speech, I’d like to say, you suck, Ted Nugent. Your songs suck. And ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ is such a dumbass, stupid song, you dick! Your music stinks!”
Before signing off, Meyers and Poehler mocked pro-Trump pundit Jack Posobiec, who participated in the first Julius Caesar interruption and later tweeted, “Tomorrow I’ll be holding a production of the Salem Witch Trials where Hillary is burned at the stake.” As Meyers noted, there is no show called Salem Witch Trials and Posobiec was likely thinking of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, “a play he wrote as an allegory about McCarthyism. There, now you have three things to Google.”
Added Poehler, “Guess what, bro? You can’t burn Hillary at the stake. She’s already been burned twice. 2008 and 2016. My bitch is Teflon now!”
