“Donald Trump desperately wants to be a king,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday evening. “We all know this. He loves pageantry and fanfare and putting his face and name on everything. His official store sells everything from Trump golf balls to Trump beer koozies to Trump pickleball paddles to Trump dog collars, which you could get in three sizes: poodle, doberman and JD Vance.
“And now, he’s doing the same thing to official government documents,” the Late Night host added, as Trump is reportedly adding his likeness to newly issued passports, becoming the first sitting president to do so. “It’s the only measure by which Trump is doing better than his predecessors,” Meyers quipped.
Naturally, given his affinity for kings, Trump pulled out all the stops for an actual royal, King Charles, during his visit this week to Washington. But “beneath all the pageantry and fanfare, there have been moments of tension,” said Meyers, as Charles made several jokes at the president’s (light) expense. Speaking to Congress, Charles ribbed Trump over his demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a $400m gilded ballroom. “I’m sorry to say that we British made our own small attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814,” he joked, referring to the burning of the first White House by British forces in the war of 1812.
Meyers imagined Trump’s reaction: “Oh Charles, your punchlines are like sex with Melania – I don’t get it!
“The timing of Charles’s ballroom jab must be especially wounding for Trump,” he added, “given that the entire Republican party is now falling in lockstep behind Trump’s ballroom demand” after the attempted shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner over the weekend. Republican lawmakers such as Lindsey Graham have used the attack as justification for a bill forcing taxpayers to foot the $400m for the project, which has been blocked by a judge pending proper permits.
“How is this their biggest priority?” Meyers wondered. “Gas is at its highest point since the Iran war started, and the majority of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse, which is the highest ever in polling, and you think the thing that’s going to solve our problems is a golden ballroom that no one else can use? The only way any of us will ever see the inside of that ballroom is if we find a Trump passport with a golden ticket inside and he gives you a tour like he’s Willy Wonka.”
The Daily Show
On the Daily Show, Josh Johnson also recapped the state visit from King Charles, the “the world’s oldest nepo baby” to Congress, because “even though our country is falling apart right now, it’s also our 250th birthday. So no matter how sad the party is going to be, our friends are still coming over. Then on the ride home they’ll be like: ‘She is a rough 250.’
“So yesterday, King Charles dropped by, and he brought some jokes to cheer us up,” Johnson continued before clips of some of the royal’s best punchlines, including: “This is a city which symbolizes a period in our shared history, or what Charles Dickens might have called a Tale of Two Georges.
“Wow, he really colonizes the stage,” Johnson quipped. “What’s annoying about this as a comedian is that he is actually killing. I mean, look at him feeling himself in the laughs!”
Charles did not stop there. “Two hundred and fifty years ago – or, as we say in the United Kingdom, just the other day …” he said to laughs from Congress.
“You know, I’ve always wondered what white Def Jam would be like,” Johnson joked.
And finally, Charles brought up the fact that the Magna Carta has been cited in at least 170 supreme court cases since 1789, “not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances”.
“Ooh, he got us too good,” Johnson said with some facetious laughter. “It’s funny, because you see, we don’t have checks and balances any more, because the foundations of our democracy are slowly being eroded away. Haha, you crazy, Chuck!”
Jimmy Kimmel
And on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host had a field day with the royals’ visit to the US. “King Charles is here to try to mend the fractured relationship between the United States and … everyone, really. Everyone in the world,” he laughed. “We are about as popular as scabies right now. Our special relationship with England is on the rocks.
“But that wasn’t the only special relationship on display last night,” he continued. “Our first couple, Donald and Melania – who lately seem closer than ever, and I like to think I played a part in that,” Kimmel said, alluding to the couple finding him to be a common enemy, after he made a joke about Melania glowing “like an expectant widow” ahead of the White House correspondents’ dinner.
Kimmel then zoomed in on a video of the couple arriving at the state dinner, in which Melania slowly but surely stopped holding her husband’s hand and avoided picking it back up. “You know, considering the week I’ve had with the first couple, I’m just going to say that is a completely normal way to interact for two people who are very much in love,” Kimmel joked. “Maybe that’s why his hands are all bruised – from Melania swatting them away.”
Jokes aside, “this was a big night for Trump,” he added. “He absolutely loves being alongside the royals. And the idea that they have to kiss his ass is as bigly as it gets for him. The king, he laid it on thick. He came bearing exactly the kind of gift Trump loves to get, a big gold thing with his name on it.”
That would be a big gold bell, which Charles gifted the president at the state dinner.
“Unfortunately, the only bell Trump likes is the taco one,” he quipped. “What if he starts wearing it? Jingling his way around the White House … could be a gamechanger for Melania at night!”
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