Late Night host Seth Meyers lays into Trump for his pardons of the violent January 6th insurrectionists and the likely reason he just said f**k it and pardoned all of them. As Meyers discussed in his a Closer Look segment this Thursday, Trump basically confessed to as much during an interview with Sean Hannity this week.
MEYERS: So Trump admitted he doesn't care about the economy or victims of natural disasters or anyone who depends on cheaper prescription drugs or government funded medical research.
He only cares about the people who will commit violence to keep him in power.
After showing some reporting on the pardons and how many of them were violent, Meyers cut to Peter Alexander questioning Trump.
ALEXANDER: You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer, right?
TRUMP: Sure.
ALEXANDER: So then if I can, among those you pardoned, DJ Rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of a DC police officer who was abducted by the mob that day.
He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon?
TRUMP: Well, I don't know. Was it a pardon?
MEYERS: They asked him about criminal pardons and he basically responded with the "I didn't hear you pardon."
How do you explain these pardons? "Pardon?"
Also, why are you asking the reporter about it? You signed it.
MEYERS MOCKING TRUMP: "I didn't realize we were talking about that January 6th. I thought we were talking about January 6, 2023, the day Meghan came out, that's who I thought I was pardoning. Megan was treated very unfairly by Marnie from Girls.
After going on a tangent about Mr. Bean, Meyers continued.
MEYERS: Anyway, the point is, now that Trump knows he pardoned a bunch of violent insurrectionists, he's going to circle back and he's gonna straighten things out.
TRUMP: And we're looking at pardons. Okay, well, we'll take a look at everything.
MEYERS: What do you mean you'll take a look? It's too late! They're all out!
You'll be looking at an empty jail cell.
This guy ran on stopping violent crime, and one of his first acts was releasing felons convicted of violent crime.
The message is clear if you support Trump, violence is forgiven. If MS-13 had changed their name to Los Amigos de las Trumpas, they would have been on the dais at the inauguration, but also, can we go back to this?
ALEXANDER: You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer, right?
TRUMP: Sure.
MEYERS: I love when even he can tell he's about to get caught in a contradiction.
I feel like you're gonna buzz me right after this, but I'll go with sure. His heart was definitely not in that one.
After comparing Trump to a guilty dog who just tore up a roll of toilet paper, Meyers moved onto the subject of why Trump actually just pardoned all of the J6 insurrectionists instead of just the violent ones. Laziness.
MEYERS: Law enforcement organizations, including the police union that endorsed Trump, have harshly criticized the pardons, calling them a mockery and a betrayal, and the backlash has been so intense, even Fox News had to ask Trump why he didn't just pardon the nonviolent offenders, and Trump explained that it would have required him to do work.
HANNITY: The only criticism or pushback I've seen is about people that were convicted or involved in incidents where they were violent with police. Why did they get a pardon?
TRUMP: You know what they were there for? They were protesting the vote because they knew the election was rigged and they were protesting the vote. And that... you should be allowed to protest the vote.
You should be allowed to, you know, the day when the day comes...
HANNITY: But you shouldn't be able to invade the Capitol.
TRUMP: Most of the people were absolutely innocent, okay, but forgetting all about that, these people have served horribly a long time. It would be very, very cumbersome to go...
Look, you know how many people we're talking about? 1500 people.
MEYERS: Yeah, it would be too cumbersome to go through the list and pardon only the ones who weren't violent.
Do you know how much paperwork that is?
That's like at least a few hours' worth of work, maybe less, considering that list definitely already exists and as the president, you just have to ask for it, but still, Trump doesn't have the time for that because he's too busy dancing no YMCA with a sword in his hand, and making everyone around them fear for their f**king lives.
He's exactly right, and that laziness may very well end up being his downfall. These pardons aren't sitting well with anyone, and all of us need to hang every single crime committed by these felons he just let loose around Trump and the rest of his enablers' necks.
