We’re going to be seeing jokes about Trump’s disastrous Axios interview for a while. Seth Meyers, who’s usually on top of Trump’s bullshit, didn’t get to it until last night, rolling it in with some of Trump’s more recent idiocy, like pronouncing Yosemite as “yo semites,” and clearly having no idea what either Tik Tok or the Secretary of the Interior actually are. (Yes, Trump is such an endless stream of incompetence and incoherence that there are multiple embarrassing incidents just since that Axios interview came out on Monday. That was this week! And there’s still one and a half work days left in this week! How have we not yet lost our ability to be shocked by this guy?)
As easy as it is to make fun of Donald Trump, and as futile and enraging and depressing as it all is, there’s still an inherent appeal to it that the people of America can’t resist. Which is why segments like this, where a sarcastic comedian cooped up in an attic somewhere points out the insane Trump stuff that we’ve already seen and heard a thousand jokes about, still pulls in viewers. Meyers’ “A Closer Look” segments can’t match John Oliver’s long, exhaustingly researched deep dives into messed-up bullshit every week, but they do wrap up some catharsis inside grim gallows humor, and the addition of the Sea Captain as Meyers’ sidekick has added a bit of welcome absurdity to the mix. (Also, there’s a pretty good chance that’s Will Forte doing the Sea Captain’s voice—if not it’s somebody doing an impression of Will Forte as a Sea Captain—and this world always needs more Will Forte.) So if you’ve got 13 minutes to kill, and want to see some more batting practice jokes about Trump being a big dumb asshole, here’s your chance.