Seth Meyers on Jared Kushner's failed coronavirus testing plan: '1. Have one'
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers returned to Late Night on Monday with some dismal coronavirus news: it is still, in August, taking more than two weeks to receive testing results in some states, “which is insane”, he said. “The whole point of testing is to find cases, isolate them, then trace their contacts. If it takes two weeks, it’s pointless.”
“We could’ve avoided this with a coordinated testing strategy from the beginning,” he continued, and the US almost had one until Jared Kushner “slithered out of his Westworld milk bath and fucked it up”. According to a damning report by Vanity Fair last week, Kushner secretly spearheaded a plan for an aggressive national testing strategy in March and April that went “poof into thin air” after it met with a “changing sentiment” by the administration. Senior advisers reportedly believed the virus was subsiding and primarily affecting “blue states”, and thus sought to push the blame for testing failures on Democratic governors.
“I guess it’s not surprising to learn that Jared Kushner is a sociopath,” Meyers said. “I mean, look at him. He looks like Hannibal Lecter in a CW reboot of Silence of the Lambs. ‘Did you hear about the new kid? I heard he ate someone’s liver with fava beans and a Capri Sun.’”
Related: Seth Meyers: beware the 'craven husks laying groundwork' for Trump's election chaos
“Kushner is the guy who takes his gloves off before dousing you with kerosene,” Meyers added, imagining the president’s son-in-law in action: “Gasoline is such a tricky smell to get out of leather. Were you aware of that, detective?”
“So they had a national testing plan then scrapped it so they could blame the whole thing on Democratic governors,” Meyers recapped. Given that it’s the Trump administration, he joked that it was likely their testing plan was simply: “1. Have one.” But “not only is that evil, it’s stupid. This is an infectious disease. This virus has traveled all over the world. Did they not realize it could travel to red states too?”
Meyers tried to imagine the mindset of a Trump official: “It’s a perfect plan – as long as no one from New York ever goes to Florida.”
Jimmy Fallon
“Well guys, with the coronavirus surging and the economy cratering,” Jimmy Fallon opened on the Tonight Show, “President Trump is turning his attention to what’s really important”: threatening to ban the Chinese-owned app TikTok in the US, citing a vague national security threat. “What is he doing? Is he the president of the United States or the preacher from Footloose?” Fallon joked.
“Apparently this is a real national security threat: the Chinese government knowing which Americans can and can’t dance,” Fallon added. “I’m sure it has everything to do with national security and nothing to do with the TikTok teens who sabotaged his Tulsa rally.”
Or it could be that Trump is “playing hardball with China”, Fallon riffed, since “if he bans TikTok, China will only be able to spy on our phones, TVs, cars and refrigerators. So, that’s where he draws the line.”
As for reports that Microsoft will purchase the app, Fallon found the idea of the American tech giant owning the video-loop app laughable. “The most non-TikTok-y people are buying TikTok,” he said. “It’s a big day for the three TikTok fans that also love Excel spreadsheets.”
