“It is a great day to be in New York City—well, unless you’re one person,” The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon said at the top of his monologue. “Trump made history,” he continued before referencing the banning of books in Ron DeSantis’s state. “The only good news for Trump: In Florida, all the history books have been thrown out, so it’s all right.”
Fallon then zeroed in on the mania outside of the New York courthouse on Tuesday, complete with controversial Republican lawmakers George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene. “It was absolute chaos,” he said. “It was basically the craziest Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even Times Square Elmo was like, ‘If they try to engage, just walk right past them. Don’t engage with them.’”
Over on Late Night, Seth Meyers devoted his “A Closer Look” segment to Trump’s dance with the criminal justice system. “It’s worth stepping back and appreciating just how crazy this was. Today, we witnessed the surreal spectacle of one of the world’s most notorious figures, a former president and current candidate, facing arrest and arraignment in the media capital of the world,” Meyers said.
In contrast to the historic nature of yesterday’s events, the late-night host poked fun at Trump’s fall from grace in his public standing. “That guy was the president of the country. If you asked for the manager at Best Buy and that guy came over, you’d say, ‘No, the manager,” Meyers quipped.
Out of pure coincidence, Meyers said, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the guest on last night’s show. “As a New Yorker, it was a very New York kind of day,” AOC said of the arrest. “I think I had always felt that something might happen. Honestly, if something did, I would’ve thought it would be something like this, around the falsification of business documents or some sort of charge that has to do with documentation or finances.”
She then credited people like her father, who worked in construction as an architect in New York City, for having Trump’s number long before the general public did. “No one knew [Trump] better than New Yorkers,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “People would’ve thought this is what he would’ve been in for before he was president.”
