Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel fire back at Donald Trump’s ‘equal time’ request

While we’re aware that there are certainly some people out there frustrated with all of the politics in late-night TV, there are reasons the likes of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and others keep discussing the Trump Administration. One may be that they share a political viewpoint in opposition to him, and another is that they are personally invested in specific causes. (Jimmy Kimmel’s plea for health-care threw him more into the political fray than he had really been over the past several months.)

Ultimately from a business standpoint, though, the biggest reason many of these shows are going political is because it’s paying off. It’s the content that they want to address and many viewers are in turn responding. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has seen stronger ratings since the host took a stronger stance against Trump, and many Kimmel videos have gone viral. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is probably the most non-political of the late-night comedy shows, but even with that we have seen him dive into this real here and there.

Earlier this morning, Trump strangely tweeted a demand for “equal time” and representation among the late-night shows, seemingly in response to a segment that aired on his network of choice in Fox News. His comment seems to be a reference to equal-time rules that exist for candidates during Presidential Elections, one that doesn’t quite apply when he is in the Oval Office.

As you would imagine, the response among many late-night hosts to Trump’s profession was about what you would expect. Kimmel invited him to quit his job and take over his, Meyers invited him to a fictional show to Antarctica, and The Daily Show brought up his infamous Access Hollywood comments with Billy Bush. (The same actually goes for Kimmel in a back-and-forth he got into with Donald Trump Jr., who tried to push Jimmy to disavow Harvey Weinstein. From our vantage point, this blew up in his face miserably.)

Ultimately, the one place Trump may ironically not be mocked as much as usual tonight is on Saturday Night Live, mostly because we’re not sure if Alec Baldwin is turning up there tonight. We’ll have coverage at CarterMatt either way. (You can preview some of what’s coming by heading over to the link here.)

What do you think both on the subject of Trump’s comments and the response from the late-night community? Be sure to share below.

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