Thread by @MesMitch

Trevor Noah on Democratic debate: 'Six candidates, all of them white'
Late-night hosts recap the final Democratic debate before primary voting opens and Trump’s counter-programming rant on … dishwashers

Trevor Noah
Airing live after the seventh Democratic debate – the final one before primary voting begins in three weeks – the Daily Show host Trevor Noah addressed the field’s disappointing lack of diversity.

“Six candidates, all of them white,” Noah said, “which is amazing odds – I mean, even a carton of eggs will sometimes have a brown one thrown in accidentally.

“For a party that started out so diverse, nobody wanted to see this happen.”

according to Noah, was “the growing tension between America’s socialist sweethearts” Warren and Sanders. Earlier this week, it was reported that in a private conversation in 2018, Sanders told Warren that he didn’t believe a woman could be elected in 2020.

Sanders has called the story “ludicrous”, while Warren confirmed it in a separate statement.

When CNN moderators asked Warren about the story at the debate, she used the opportunity to remind everyone that the only candidates on stage who have defeated a Republican incumbent in the past 30 years were the two women.

“Not since Kill Bill have I seen one woman obliterate that many men in one fell swoop,” Noah reacted. “I mean, forget the wealth tax – Warren just deducted two balls from every man on that stage.”

Warren “definitely won the exchange” with Sanders, Noah continued, “although it would’ve been a much cleaner victory if she didn’t come back a few moments later to create one of the weirdest moments we’ve ever seen in a debate”.

That would be a minute in which Sanders and Warren quibbled over whether Sanders’s victory over a Republican incumbent in 1990 was 30 years ago or over 30 years ago.

“That was the most unnecessary, nit-picky argument you will ever see in a presidential debate,” Noah responded. “You know what it felt like? It felt like we were watching an old couple fight in a diner.”

Stephen Colbert
While the Democrats debated in Iowa, Trump tried to steal the limelight with a Keep America Great rally in Milwaukee – a predictably incoherent affair recapped by Stephen Colbert on the Late Show.

First, there was Trump’s boast: “Is there ever, ever a better place to be than a Trump rally on some night in some week

“He really has no idea what day it is,” Colbert observed, then imitated the president: “I’ll never forget the wonderful night and/or day we’re having here in unnamed screaming place USA.”

Trump also speculated on how things would be different if Clinton had been elected in 2016, concluding that “you wouldn’t have bought all those brand-new Keep America Great hats”.

“He’s right, that checks out,” Colbert said. “Yes, we have paid a price, America has lost some standing in the world, the destruction of our constitutional norms, massive and flagrant corruption but … hats.”

The most bizarre section came when Trump launched into what Colbert jokingly called the “hot button issue” of dishwasher efficiency.

In a rant that truly defies summary, Trump claimed that he’s bringing the country back to a time where you don’t have to run the dishwasher multiple times – or something like that.

Whatever it was, the import was clear to Colbert: “We cannot let this guy become president.” Also, he added, “we should not take dishwasher advice from a man who eats a majority of his meals out of a cardboard bucket.”

Jimmy And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also touched on the Democratic debate; one photo of the six candidates was “so white, it was just nominated for best picture”, he joked.

Kimmel also acknowledged the apparent rift between Sanders and Warren over his alleged comment that a woman could not win an election in America. “In his defense,” Kimmel said, “back in 1919, Bernie Sanders was one of the first senators to support a woman’s right to vote.”

Kimmel characterized the rift between the senators as “rare and unexpected” since “usually, they’re on the same page. I mean, up until now Bernie and Warren have spent just about every debate looking like a married couple at a diner complaining that their soup isn’t hot enough.”

Meanwhile, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, confirmed that the Senate’s impeachment trial for Trump will probably begin next Tuesday, though it’s still unclear if Republicans will allow any witnesses to be called.

“Can you imagine a trial without witnesses?” Kimmel marveled. McConnell said “he doesn’t want to send the Senate on a fishing expedition,” Kimmel explained. “Asking the people who actually saw and heard what they saw and heard isn’t a fishing expedition; it’s a trip 2the aquarium