Late Night Last Week: Bill Burr and Jon Stewart Rip LA Wildfire Trolls
Every week, Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, Bill Burr talks about the devastating L.A. fires, Jon Stewart targets the outrageous Republican response to the fires, and NBC hosts a couple of great stand-up sets.
Los Angeles continues to deal with the effects of the devastating wildfires, but that has not stopped some people from weighing in with a host of horrible takes and conspiracies. On late night last week, Bill Burr and Jon Stewart would not stand for it.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Burr, who nearly lost his home, came out swinging in the guest’s chair. He directed his ire towards the armchair firefighters online. “This was definitely mismanaged,” Burr said, mocking the keyboard warriors. “Mismanaged? Like some fucking idiot on the internet knows how to manage the worst fire in LA, sitting there in his underwear.”
Burr then turned his attention to the mainstream media’s coverage of the fires. “All the chatter out there is about bands of illegal immigrants and homeless people lighting fires. They’re lighting fires every day! They’re cold!” he said. “But CNN and Fox News are not gonna bring up the insurance companies that are just gonna keep everybody’s premiums and still give themselves a bonus.” “Free Luigi!” he added.
This led to Jimmy Kimmel asking his guest how he would be in a fire. Burr admitted that he does well in high-pressure incidents, but not so well in the day-to-day. When the toaster doesn’t work? That’s when he loses it and all his suppressed emotions come out: “They’re like, Dad, it’s toast, what is the big deal? It’s like, well, I would tell you what the big deal was but it’s too sad, so we’ll just keep it on the toast.”
Meanwhile, over on The Daily Show, Monday host Jon Stewart did what he does so well: expose hypocrisy. Stewart began the broadcast with the fires, highlighting the heroic work of firefighters (many of whom are incarcerated) and the devastation. But he soon turned to elected leaders on the right in Washington, who are now saying that any aid to California must come with conditions.
“I can do The Daily Show thing. I can run down all the congresspeople and senators on the right calling for conditions on disaster aid that absolutely had the opposite view when it was their state on the line,” Stewart said. “I could do it, but it doesn’t even matter. I’m not even going to do it. Red states are always the tragic victims of circumstance outside of their control and Democrats always vote for their aid. Whereas blue state disasters are a function of their flawed morality and policy. And if we help blue state survivors, well what message will that send? What lesson will they learn?”
A smart man in awful times. Watch his full monologue below.
The NBC late night programming played host to a pair of strong stand-up sets last week. On Monday, Dusty Slay came out on The Tonight Show to capture a feeling to which many will relate. “You ever check into a hotel and the pool’s closed?” he asked. “And you weren’t planning on getting in, but you still feel a little ripped off?”