As the January 6 committee hearings resume soon, more Trump allies continue to be subpoenaed. But at this point, Seth Meyers isn’t confident that Trump himself should be among those brought in to testify. On Wednesday night’s “Late Night,” the host likened the situation to literally putting a monkey on a stage.
To kick off his “A Closer Look” segment, Meyers explained that the ninth hearing was delayed this week as a result of Hurricane Ian hitting Florida. According to Meyers, the delay gave more time to the committee to continue deciding whether they want to subpoena Mike Pence or Trump himself. But Meyers has some reservations about that idea.
“I gotta be honest, if I was on the committee, I’m not sure where I’d land on the question of whether to subpoena Trump,” he said. “I mean, on the one hand, it would be great to get him under oath on camera, so you can make him answer questions in front of the American public under the threat of perjury. On the other hand, he’s not going to answer questions under threat of perjury.”
Meyers then got a bit more blunt. “Putting Trump on the stand is as good an idea as putting a chimpanzee in a school play. He’s not gonna stick to the script,” he joked.
To back up his argument, Meyers pulled up footage of a recent interview the twice-impeached former president did with Sean Hannity, in which he went off on “deranged tangents” — including claiming that protesters wanted to “rip down” the Lincoln Memorial, and that people in New York “walk into stores with axes and they start swinging the axes at people.”
“Did he accidentally watch ‘House of Dragon’ and think it was the news?” Meyers mocked, before once again busting out his Trump impression. “‘Have you seen what’s happening in New York City? People are wearing gold cloaks, they’re having sword fights, they put a ponytail on Doctor Who, it’s so sad. Doctor Who… I saw that, I said Doctor What? And New York City has a major dragon problem. Letitia James, you know, she’s — they should be doing something about the dragons!”
Mocking aside — sort of — Meyers noted that if Trump were allowed to testify, given his record in interviews, it would take a long time to get through it.
“Can you Imagine that guy sitting down for a televised congressional hearing? It would take days,” Meyers said. “The networks would have to preempt all their programming just so Trump could ramble about statues or axe murders or windmills or toilets that don’t flush.”
You can watch the full “A Closer Look” segment in the video above.
