Colbert and Fallon Couldn’t Help But Make the Same Joke About Donald Trump’s Arrest

There’s nothing like the arrest and arraignment of a former president — especially if that former president is Donald Trump — to get every late-night host and writer outrageously giddy. Hell, the excitement was so palpable and pervasive after Trump appeared in court to plead not guilty to the 34 class E felonies against him that Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert unsurprisingly stumbled onto basically the same joke.

“The former president was officially charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, all of which were classified as class E felonies,” Colbert cracked. “Well, leave it to the man with the golden toilet — even his felonies are ‘class-e.’”

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And Fallon dusted off his Trump impression to quip, “Trump was like, ‘Of course, they were very classy felonies. Someone would say the classiest of felonies.”

That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of unique one-liners to go around. “At this point, of course, he was read his Miranda rights,” Colbert said of Trump’s arrest. “Then he claimed Miranda wasn’t even his type, asked her to sign an N.D.A., and got indicted again.”

Later the Late Show host joked about the delightful video of a court officer not holding the door open for Trump, cracking, “That’s kind of special — it’s not often you see a door hitting an ass on the way in.”

Meanwhile, on The Tonight Show, Fallon happily gobbled up some low-hanging fruit, joking, “Trump was actually finger-printed —they didn’t use an ink pad, they just used the McRib sauce that was already on his fingers.” And of the lone photo of Trump sitting before the judge, Fallon said the ex-pres looked like he was “watching another table at Applebee’s get their food first”; or, like he “had to sit through two un-skippable ads on YouTube”; or like “Ben Affleck at the Grammys.”

On Late Night, Seth Meyers took the extremely local angle and happily ran through a whole bunch of jokes about Trump having to fly from Florida into LaGuardia Airport for his arraignment. “I didn’t think there was a fate worse than prison, but then they made him land at LaGuardia?” Meyers cracked before busting out his own Trump impression: “So where are we touching down? Teterboro, White Plains? ‘LaGuardia, Sir.’ LaGuardia! I’m not on trial for murder!’”

Meyers also touched on the media circus and weak MAGA protest outside the courthouse in NYC, including the appearance of Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Outside agitator Marjorie Taylor Greene showed up at a nearby park to scream and shout like a lunatic, something only a tourist from Georgia would think gets her attention in New York City,” Meyers cracked.

And last but not least, Roy Wood Jr. had the great pleasure of serving as The Daily Show’s guest host on this auspicious week. Along with pointedly noting how Trump got to skirt the structural indignities built into the criminal justice system for pretty much everyone else who has to go through it, Wood noted that — indictment aside — the media circus surrounding yesterday was everything Trump lives for. The former president even had the chance to do the arraignment virtually, but chose not to, Wood noted.

“I completely get why Trump didn’t do it over Zoom. One, he’d have gotten on camera and they just would’ve found more classified documents in the background. Two, Trump wants publicity: Look at how he came out of Trump Tower this morning giving the Black Power fist like a real political prisoner. … Hell, Trump liable to show up to court every day dancing on top of a car like Michael Jackson.”

Wood also got a special assist from former longtime Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who showed up dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi to offer guidance and mentorship. Unfortunately, the pair spent so much time making Star Wars jokes they barely touched on the Trump arraignment anymore.

Also, if you got to the end of this rundown and it felt like something was missing, maybe an ABC-sized hole in your heart — well, pour one out for Jimmy Kimmel, who picked a hell of a week to go on vacation.

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