Stephen Colbert on Republicans and abortion bans: ‘Backpedaling like a tweaked-out unicycle chimp’

Late-night hosts talked Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban, Trump’s backpedaling on overturning Roe v Wade and Joe Biden’s state dinner with the prime minister of Japan.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert didn’t mince words when it came to the Arizona supreme court voting to reinstate a 160-year-old abortion ban. “That is crazy,” the Late Show host said on Wednesday. “But remember, it’s Arizona, so it’s a dry crazy.”

The court ruled that because Roe v Wade had been overturned, there was nothing stopping them from enforcing the 1864 law, which was passed before women had the right to vote. “To which the Arizona supreme court said, ‘don’t worry – we’ll work on that one next,’” Colbert joked.

The law is so old, in fact, that it predates the invention of the cowboy hat, the urinal, the paper clip, the machine that makes paper bags and Arizona as a state. “You can’t enforce state laws from before it was a state!” Colbert exclaimed. “If you could, people in Massachusetts could be arrested for failure to buckle hat.”

Related: Arizona Republicans denounce revived 1864 abortion ban in sudden reversal

The ruling, by an all-Republican court, is expected to backfire at the ballot box, where it will probably face a referendum this November. Since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June 2022, “this ruling has been a disaster for all the Republicans’ attempts to keep suburban voters,” Colbert explained. “So GOP candidates are now backpedaling like a tweaked-out unicycle chimp.

The far-right Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, for example, announced she opposed the ruling and called on the legislature to “come up with an immediate commonsense solution that Arizonans can support”.

“Which is a surprising position to take,” Colbert noted, because before the Dobbs decision, Lake bragged that Arizona “already has great legislation on the books” so that “Arizona will not be a state where abortions are happening.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers blasted Trump’s attempt to moderate his stance on abortion after securing the end of Roe. “There could be no escaping accountability. Trump told everyone he would overturn Roe, he nominated three justices who overturned Roe, and then he bragged about overturning Roe,” he said.

“Normally, it would be very hard to pin something on Trump because he’s so good at wriggling his way out of everything, but this is as straightforward as it gets,” he continued. “It’s like one of those conspiracy theory boards with one string going straight from Trump to Roe.

“And yet Trump is now trying to trick everyone into thinking he’s actually a moderate on abortion who opposes a national abortion ban,” he added, after Arizona’s “grotesque” ruling reinvigorating a near total abortion ban from 1864. “What the fuck – states can enforce laws written before they were even states?!” Meyers fumed. “Does that mean any state in the Louisiana Purchase is now subject to the laws of 18th-century France?

“This is exactly the situation Trump said he supports – leaving it up to the states,” Meyers said. Indeed, after the ruling, Trump told reporters: “As you know it’s all about states’ rights, that’ll be straightened out.”

“What do you mean it will get straightened out?! You broke it! This is your fault,” Meyers retorted. “We had a landmark supreme court ruling in place that protected the health and bodily autonomy of all Americans, and you undid it. You don’t get to clog a toilet at a party and then say ‘I think we can all agree someone else will fix it.’”

Jimmy Kimmel

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel recapped Joe Biden’s state dinner with the prime minister of Japan and his wife. “His state dinners are a little different than usual,” Kimmel joked. “For one thing, they start at 4.30, and you can only get in if you have a Groupon.”

Related: Kimmel on Trump hush-money trial: ‘Like something out of an episode of Seinfeld’

The dinner, which was in honor of the Washington cherry trees gifted by Japan in 1912, was graced with entertainment by Paul Simon. “That’s big. Trump was lucky to get the surviving members of O-Town for one of his state dinners, but Japan got an evening of Simon and Joe-funkel,” said Kimmel.

Trump, meanwhile, “took a break from trying to derail his porn star hush-money trial” to make a surprise stop at a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta. “He likes to go in to fast-food restaurants and buy everyone food like a big shot,” Kimmel noted. “He bought 30 milkshakes and some chicken and then started passing it around.”

Trump also took the time to proclaim that he “did everything” to help historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). “Just a former president muttering, ‘I did everything, I did everything,’ to himself at a fast-food chicken restaurant,” Kimmel laughed. “Nothing unusual there!”