How Late-Night TV Torched Trump’s NFT Announcement

Donald Trump’s “major announcement” turned out to be something between a dud and just plain dumb. On Thursday, the 45th president of the United States of America unveiled the launch of an NFT trading-card collection. The digital artwork features images of Trump dressed as a cowboy, a superhero, an astronaut, a Navy pilot, and other iconic American archetypes.

Unsurprisingly, the unveiling of these NFT cards was widely mocked — especially given the widespread speculation that Trump would be throwing his hat into the ring as a candidate for Speaker of the House. That might have qualified as “major,” but not this. What Trump’s actual announcement did was provide prime material for late-night television. All four major (ongoing) hosts — Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon — poked fun at the news on their Thursday shows.

More from IndieWire

• 'The Boys' Vought International Debuts Homelander NFT Trading Cards to Spoof Donald Trump

• Watch Jimmy Fallon Celebrate Not Being Dead

On “The Late Show,” Colbert played the teaser video for the NFT set, which featured Trump saying “America Needs a Superhero.” Naturally, the art (we use that word liberally) depicted him with laser vision. Colbert mocked the contrast of the ex-president, “the ex-most powerful person in the world,” releasing such embarrassing merch in an attempt to stay relevant. The intangible trading cards go for $99 a pop.

“This is the least-dignified attempt at post-presidential merchandising since the launch of Tickle-Me-Truman,” Colbert said, before plugging Trump’s launch’s website as: “www.TheSaddestF-ckingThingYou’veEverSeen.Org.”

Meyers, in his monologue for “Late Night,” called the entire strategy pathetic. He riffed on Trump’s announcement video, in which 45 describes the artwork as “pertaining to my life and career.” He’s just trolling us all at this point, yes?

“Real quick, which part of your life and your career is sunglass astronaut?” Meyers asked. “‘Cause I feel like I would have remembered that.”

Meyers also got a kick out of the timing of the announcement, which came shortly after NFT firm FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested for multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. “They got SBF, looks like there’s an opening available then,” Meyers said.

Over on ABC, Kimmel referred to the digital offering as effectively nothing and poked fun at Trump’s various legal controversies during and after his term in office. “Not even real trading cards — digital trading cards, which is another way of saying nothing,” he said. “Last time you got a red hat, now he’s selling you nothing.”

“By the way, we already have Donald Trump trading cards — they’re called subpoenas,” Kimmel quipped.

On “The Tonight Show,” Fallon stressed that the announcement video is indeed real before playing it in full to a laughing audience.

“Even the most die-hard Trump supporters were like, ‘Okay, now I’m worried,'” Fallon said. “You know your campaign isn’t going well when your reelection strategy is, ‘Maybe people will like me as a Pokémon.’ Trump was like, ‘These cards are like classified documents, you’ve got to catch them all.'”

Watch Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, and Fallon’s monologues below.

Best of IndieWire

• The Best TV Shows of 2022

• The Best True Crime Streaming Now, from 'Unsolved Mysteries' to 'McMillions' to 'The Staircase'

• 'The Last of Us' Sets Early 2023 Release at HBO: Here's Everything You Need to Know

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.