Late Wednesday night, comedian Seth Meyers presented his most convincing case yet for why American voters should not cast their ballot for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. But first, the Late Night host acknowledged that the polls had indeed gotten closer in the past few days, with “a lot of the tightening happening before the FBI’s recent announcement that they discovered new emails relevant to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server. And now, Democrats are freaking out.”
Meyers then threw to a clip of a cable news pundit calling Democrats “bedwetters,” prompting the former SNL scribe to joke, “Democrats are bedwetters, but to be fair, there really is a monster hiding in their closets,” he said, before cutting to a picture of Trump.
Of course, Trump had called all the polls “rigged” and “phony” ad nauseum over the past several months, but now that he’s gaining on Hillary—with one dubious poll even having him up 1 percentage point nationally—the former reality-TV show host is singing a different tune:
Polling is a strange science. If you recall back in 2012, the polls had Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney neck-and-neck up until Election Day—only to see Obama crush Romney in the general election 332 electoral votes to 206. And if Hillary Clinton carries every Democratic state that’s gone blue since 1992, that leaves her with 242 electoral votes already, with North Carolina and Virginia, where she’s up considerably, taking her to 270 (that’s without counting Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, etc.).
This slice of reality prompted one of Trump’s surrogates, CNN’s Kayleigh McEnany, to go as far as suggesting that Trump has a chance in the traditionally blue state of Minnesota because… a group of high-school students voted for Trump in a mock election.
“Newt Gingrich has been pointing out all day that there was a statewide election of high-school students in Minnesota,” said McEnany. “Seventy-seven thousand high-school students voted. Donald Trump won. Who in their right mind would think Donald Trump would win among high-school students in Minnesota?”
Jesus Christ. “You think high-school students voting for Trump means he’ll win Minnesota?” said Meyers. “If high-school votes determined who won, our next president would be whoever brings weed to prom—or as he’s more commonly known: Gary Johnson.”
And just before ending his “Closer Look” segment, which has become required viewing of late, Meyers presented viewers who “just don’t love the two choices” for president with the case against each, rapid-fire style:
“I mean, do you pick someone who’s under federal investigation for using a private email server, or do you pick someone who called Mexicans ‘rapists,’ claimed the president was born in Kenya, proposed banning an entire religion from entering the U.S., mocked a disabled reporter, said John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured, attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, bragged about committing sexual assault, was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault, said some of those women weren’t attractive enough for him to sexually assault, said more countries should get nukes, said he would force the military to commit war crimes, said a judge was ‘biased’ because his parents were Mexicans, said women should be ‘punished’ for having abortions, incited violence at his rallies, called global warming ‘a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese,’ called for his opponent to be jailed, declared bankruptcy six times, bragged about not paying income taxes, stiffed his contractors and employees, lost a billion dollars in one year, scammed customers at his fake university, bought a six-foot-tall painting of himself with money from his fake foundation, has a trial for fraud coming up in November, insulted an opponent’s looks, insulted an opponent’s wife’s looks, and bragged about grabbing women ‘by the pussy.’” “How do you choose?” Meyers added. “Because it’s so… it’s so even. It’s so even.”