“Damn it! I want my trial!” Colbert said during his late show on CBS. “You were supposed to provide me with six weeks of delicious content. I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames.”
On “The Daily Show,” guest host Jordan Klepper said he envisioned the axed trial “like the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, but … instead of Soup Nazis, it’s just Nazis.”
Fallon was more forgiving on “The Tonight Show.” “You could tell Fox was stressed about the trial because they spent the day chugging Bud Light.”
And Kimmel guffawed at Fox’s attempts to spin the settlement in its favor, including a network statement that insisted it “reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
“They’re already lying in their statement about lying,” Kimmel said.
The settlement’s mammoth size, which is equivalent to almost one-fifth of Fox’s cash on hand (though it’s unclear how much of that insurance might cover), also made good grist for the comedians.
“It’s so much money, they’ve already started selling ad space on Tucker Carlson’s forehead,” Corden quipped in his late-late show.
Kimmel joked that Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo, who was a key player in the trial’s evidence, would next be seen waiting tables at the Planet Hollywood in Times Square.
“Sadly, they have to fire Brian Kilmeade’s reading tutor,” Klepper said. “Jeanine Pirro has to switch to the cheap box of wine. Development on a third Doocy has been halted. They’re going to have to switch from Jesse Watters to tap waters. … They’re going to have to put down Sean Hannity.”
The audiences ate the jokes up. But it was also evident that the late-night comedians — who are generally liberal-leaning and loath the popular conservative news network — wanted their pound of flesh, too.
“What we need is Fox News personalities to look straight into the camera, admit that they lied over and over again about the 2020 election, and then hurl themselves into Mount Doom,” Colbert said.
