Seth Meyers compares Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts' to a Jedi novice trying out mind tricks
President Trump's first weekend in the White House was an edifying start to the Trump era, Seth Meyers said on Monday's Late Night. "On one hand, we saw what may have been the largest organized protest in U.S. history, and on the other hand we had the new Trump administration openly lying on its first full day in office." He started with the Women's Marches, which turned out 3-4 million people in the U.S. and around the world. "Imagine being so disliked that people are willing to go outside and protest you in Antarctica," Meyers said. "That would be like if you climbed Mt. Everest and when you got to the top there was a guy there booing you."
The protests and modest turnout for Trump's inauguration may be understandable given his historically low popularity and popular vote loss, but Trump didn't try to mend many fences in his "nightmarish dystopian hellscape" of an inaugural address, Meyers said. "Just to clarify, Ronald Reagan said it's morning in America; Trump is saying it's morning in America, but like early morning, when you wake up hungover, in a cold sweat, and you realize you're in Thailand and there's a dead body in the bed next to you, the only sound you hear is cops banging on your door, and all you can think is, 'What the f—k is happening?!?' — it's that kind of morning."
Trump couldn't help but complain about media coverage of his inaugural crowd at a CIA pep talk on Saturday. "Look, no one cares about crowd sizes," Meyers said. "The only reason this is a story is that Trump insists on lying about it, and sending White House officials out to lie about it." White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's inaugural briefing was a PR disaster, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway didn't really clean it up on Sunday when she said Spicer was just relying on "alternative facts." "Kellyanne Conway is like someone trying to do the Jedi mind trick after only a week of Jedi training," Meyers said, imagining the alternative dialogue: "'These are not the droids you're looking for.' 'Yeah, they are, those are my droids.' 'No, these are alternative robots.'" He wrapped it up by explaining why Trump's little lies matter. Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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