The Washington Post reported Thursday that President Donald Trump, while in a meeting with bipartisan lawmakers about immigration reform, referred to El Salvador, Haiti, and a handful of African nations as “s–thole countries,” questioning why the United States couldn’t receive more immigrants from places like Norway.
CNN anchors slammed Trump as “racist,” and late night hosts took a similar tack Thursday night.
Stephen Colbert repudiated Trump, stating that those countries couldn’t be s–tholes — “for one, Donald Trump isn’t their president.”
After calling out Trump for posting a misleading tweet about a Quinnipiac University poll that actually reflected poorly on the president rather than positively — as Trump attempted to make it seem — Jimmy Kimmel blasted the president for his comments.
“Before I share what specifically he said, I’d like you to keep in mind, this is an actual quote from the actual president of the United States,” he said. The news report of the comments reported in the Washington Post received boos from the audience.
“Listen,” Kimmel said, “I’m sure the fact the countries he described as s–tholes are mostly populated by people of color and the immigrants he wants from Norway are not is a coincidence because if it wasn’t, it would mean we voted for a racist, like a real one, and we’d have to get pitchforks and chase him out of the White House.”
“The only silver lining, and this is a small silver lining, is that we got to hear Wolf Blitzer say this all day,” Kimmel joked, as a reel of Blitzer saying “s-hole,” with the expletive replaced by just the letter s, played.
“What an s-hole,” Kimmel finished.
Seth Meyers took the opportunity to introduce a new segment called “Seth Has to Walk Away for a Minute,” leaving his desk after recapping Trump’s comments and standing a few paces away, mumbling things like “At what point…at what point do you just have some common decency, some human emotion.”
Meyers also touched on the comments in his “Closer Look” segment.
“To be fair, maybe he meant it as a compliment,” Meyers said. “After all, Trump does all his best tweets when he’s sitting on the s–thole.”
Watch the clips below.
