President Donald Trump has recently amplified his criticism of late-night TV hosts, with Seth Meyers being his most recent target. Meyers has been using his platform to ridicule Trump’s military operation in Venezuela and other policies implemented by his administration.
Last week, Meyers, along with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel, criticized Trump for the military operation on January 3, 2026, that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The hosts questioned Trump’s motives, with several late-night shows implying that Trump’s frequent references to Venezuela’s oil reserves were the actual motivation behind the intervention.
During his show “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” the host referred to a New York Times report that suggested Trump’s team was convinced that Maduro was taunting them due to his frequent public dancing and other nonchalant behavior. “We invaded Iraq because of WMDs, and now we invaded Venezuela because of WDMs — wicked dance moves!” Meyers quipped.
Meyers also aired compilations showing Trump and his administration officials repeatedly speaking about Venezuela’s oil reserves. Displaying sarcasm, the host said, “Damn it, I just wish there were clues,” pointing out how Trump “just undercuts everyone around him and confesses the truth” by constantly discussing Venezuelan oil while his allies insist the intervention was about narcotics or human rights.
Meyers responded to Trump’s recent statements hinting he might cancel future elections, assuring the president that “if you cancel the elections, it won’t be fake news,” referring to him as a dictator. “At that point, the dictionary will,” Meyers stated during his monologue.
Trump’s ongoing conflict with late-night hosts has increased during his second term. In November 2025, Trump stated on Truth Social that Meyers was “suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” and demanded that NBC dismiss him “IMMEDIATELY.” The president stated, “NO TALENT, NO RATINGS, 100% ANTI TRUMP, WHICH IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL!!!”
Trump’s statement was a response to a segment on Meyers’ show titled “Seth Translates Trump to English,” in which he ridiculed a speech Trump gave to U.S. Navy troops, where he expressed his preference for steam-powered catapults over electric ones for aircraft carriers. Meyers remarked: “Guy spends more time thinking about catapults than Wile E. Coyote.”
CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert also made light of the Venezuela operation, joking that its timing coincided with the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. “Do you know what this means? Those Epstein files must be crazy,” Colbert said, impersonating Trump in a state of panic: “Bomb something! Bomb anything!” Kimmel echoed the sentiment, joking that “if you were wondering how bad these Epstein files are, turns out they’re ‘invade Venezuela’ bad.”
On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart expressed his shock at Trump’s blatant discussions about seizing Venezuelan oil. “Oil — a precious commodity, certainly — but not the reason a country formed 250 years ago on the ideas of liberty and self-determination would go into a country and snatch a man at night,” Stewart said. “Look, this is all exhausting.”
Jimmy Fallon, who typically stays away from political commentary, couldn’t resist a joke: “When I heard there was an operation to extract a president, I just assumed Trump got stuck in his tanning bed.”
Trump’s criticisms of late-night TV are not confined to Meyers. Between September and November 2025, Trump increased his public criticism of several late-night hosts. A significant incident occurred in mid-September when ABC briefly suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s show after he criticized conservative reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel stated, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
On September 18, Trump praised the suspension, calling Kimmel “not a talented person; he had very bad ratings.” He also suggested that networks with predominantly negative coverage of him “should maybe” have their broadcast licences revoked, claiming “97 percent” of stories about him were negative. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump, even shared the president’s posts attacking Meyers and had previously announced investigations into ABC over Kimmel’s Charlie Kirk comments.
Trump was also delighted by the news that Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” would end in May 2026, stating he “absolutely love[s] that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.” Colbert and other hosts have accused the Trump administration of authoritarian tactics, with Colbert referring to Kimmel’s suspension as “blatant censorship” and Stewart characterizing the environment as reminiscent of a dictatorship.
The escalating hostility between Trump and late-night television has raised concerns about freedom of speech and political pressure on media outlets. Despite his temporary suspension, Kimmel returned to the air and continued his criticism, recently winning the Critics Choice Award for best talk show—which he attributed in part to Trump.
Trump continues to frame the mocking by these hosts not as harmless satire but as part of what he perceives as a broader bias against him in mainstream media, repeatedly calling for their dismissal and threatening the broadcast licenses of networks that air critical content.
