Stephen Colbert on Trump blaming 'blue states' for Covid deaths: 'Unspeakably monstrous'

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert recounted a number of erroneous, misleading, and outright horrifying statements by Donald Trump on Thursday’s Late Show, starting with the President’s assertion in a press conference on Wednesday that states should open immediately in preparation for an as-yet non-existent vaccine. Trump’s comments directly contradicted recommendations from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr Robert Redfield, who told Congress this week that it would take at least a year for a vaccine to be safely developed. Trump insisted without evidence that a vaccine would be available this fall: “We know the vaccines are coming, so open up your states.”

“That’s crazy,” Colbert responded, and called the advisory akin to saying, “Hey, we know you don’t have any winter clothes yet, but go stumble into the blizzard. I ordered you a parka, it’s supposed to be here between October and next August.”

Trump also insisted that America is handling the pandemic well, if you discount so-called “blue states” which voted Democratic in the 2016 election. “The blue states had tremendous death rates,” Trump said in a press conference. “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.”

“I’m not entirely sure where to begin there. This is unspeakably monstrous,” Colbert said of the comments, “especially for the president of the United States. Whoever they are, these are all human lives that he is responsible for.”

Related: Seth Meyers on Trump's town hall: he 'lied as often as he breathed'

“This is like being asked to speak at a funeral and saying, ‘We’re here to mourn the passing of Kevin but if you take him out of the equation, this is a pretty good party.’”

“Also – and I know this is going to shock you – Trump’s wrong” as the states with the highest Covid death tolls are New York, New Jersey, Texas, California and Florida, two of which (Texas and Florida) voted for him in 2016. They’re also not coincidentally the states with the largest populations in the country, “so he’s just saying if you don’t count the states with people, he’s done a great job,” said Colbert. “Forget the presidency – I wouldn’t trust Trump to run a middle school field trip.”

The highest infection rates as of this writing are in states that Trump won, Colbert added, “but it doesn’t matter – we’re all Americans. We’re all human beings. Donald Trump is the only one who doesn’t care whether Americans live or die.”

Trevor Noah

On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah also addressed Trump’s blaming of America’s coronavirus death toll – the country has lost nearly 200,000 people to the virus – on so-called “blue states”.

“Did this dude just try to pull the ‘If you eat around the mold, everything’s fine’ move, but with corona deaths?” Noah joked. “While we’re at it, why don’t we just not count the red states, too? Then, the US has zero deaths, which is pretty impressive, if you ask me.”

On a serious note, he added, “it’s truly astounding that a leader – a leader – would even think of his country in that way. You can’t just write off entire states. My man, this isn’t the electoral college; the popular vote counts.”

The comments aren’t just “embarrassing, unpatriotic, and just gross,” Noah continued. “They’re also wrong. Because even if you made the very weird decision to not count deaths from all the blue states, America would still have one of the worst death rates of any country in the world. So even Trump’s lies are lies – it’s like the inception of lies. Somehow, Trump can’t even flatten the curve he’s grading himself on.”

Seth Meyers

And on Late Night, Seth Meyers breezed through a series of disturbing mid-week revelations: Trump contradicted the head of the CDC on the timeline of a potential vaccine; a report found the justice department considered charging peaceful protesters, including the mayor of Seattle, with “sedition”; and a whistleblower revealed that military police leaders considered using a “heat ray” to disperse peaceful protesters for Trump’s photo-op with a Bible in June.

“Things are so insane that we’re skipping past multiple layers of news at once,” Meyers said of the depressing list. “We don’t have time to process the fact that the government has a fucking heat ray because we’ve already moved on to the fact that they considered using it against peaceful protesters. That’s the same weapon the Martians used in The War of the Worlds.”

“Nothing is fiction anymore,” he added. “We should all start studying the schematics of the Death Star now, just in case.”

And of course, there’s Trump’s dismissal of nearly 200,000 American coronavirus deaths on “blue states.” Meyers, a resident of one of those states (New York) who “knows people effected by this virus,” had one thing to say to that comment: “go fuck yourself, you rotting, soulless business ham.”

“Sure, if you just take out all the people that died, then you did a great job, dude,” he added. “By the same token, if you take out all his albums, Kid Rock has had a fantastic career.”

“This has to be one of the most grotesque things a president has ever said,” Meyers concluded. “I’m sure he’s not our first sociopath president, but he’s definitely the first one who’s open about it.”