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Prominent network comedy shows such as " Saturday Night Live " focused their political humor on President-elect Donald Trump however their routines did not change the outcome of the Election Day 2024 result with Trump emerging victorious. Late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert Jimmy Kimmel Seth Meyers plus others along with the “Saturday Night Live” program did not use their large platforms to turn away voter opinions that boosted Trump during the November election showing a significant disconnect between media influence and voter outcome.
The overwhelming push from anti-Trump media including multiple mainstream late night shows could not deter Trump's winning campaign. Some television hosts like Stephen Colbert Jimmy Kimmel Seth Meyers raised considerable sums of money for Democratic presidential campaigns yet despite millions raised the money failed to achieve intended outcomes. The media resistance frustrated many comedians and television personalities following Election Day leading to on-air responses from curses to overt tears highlighting significant shock at election results.
For nearly ten years mainstream late-night comics directed jokes heavily supporting Democratic Party and also showing negativity towards Trump's policies and candidacy. Media Research Center conducted a recent study revealing that political jokes delivered by prominent late-night television programs consistently targeted Donald Trump with few directed at other political figures. “The Daily Show” “Jimmy Kimmel Live” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers” included the specific shows studied during analysis of humor content.
A Media Research Center study noted between September 3 and October 25 from an impressive 1463 jokes 1428 targeted Donald Trump and only 35 were at Vice President Kamala Harris with remaining targeted elsewhere. Analyst Alex Christy who created the Media Research Center report stated 98% of jokes focused on Trump demonstrating the unbalanced nature of the humor delivered on the different late night platforms. Even some of the infrequent jokes against Democrats lacked the same negative tone being tempered with a justification by the respective host. NBC host Seth Meyer qualified a joke regarding President Biden by immediately commenting about criminal allegations related to Trump further exhibiting subtle bias in some of the platforms of broadcast media.
MRC Newsbusters executive editor Tim Graham highlighted that these mainstream comedians are not effectively altering public perception since their core audiences mostly consist of anti-Trump Democratic individuals who like Trump jokes that is ‘preaching to the choir' instead of changing people’s minds through comedy. Tim Graham used his extensive media expertise to highlight a pattern which indicated those watching mainstream media did not alter public opinions based on the jokes alone. He noted Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and other media professionals sound more like Democrat Senators who are hired for the sole purpose to make audiences laugh at a specific narrative and not necessarily to create a neutral opinion on a public matter.
Jimmy Kimmel during the September 25 episode brought out his wife Molly McNearney as a comedian. Her comedic commentary advised Trump to 'shut up' and go away further revealing strong negative biases in his specific platform towards Trump’s campaign. Her commentary highlighted many underlying sentiments among some people in the entertainment industry suggesting further actions of public engagement that is against Trump. Many critics and television reporters considered such statements to be not only out of touch but also biased due to the specific nature of attacks against specific candidates who might hold dissenting opinions.
“Saturday Night Live” has long used their sketch comedy show to directly satirize Republican policies and Trump was consistently highlighted in many negative sketches as many of their segments also generated direct criticisms from the Trump presidential campaign. One “Saturday Night Live” skit joked about many assassination attempts against Donald Trump and his rallies which drew significant criticism. Trump's campaign team criticized NBC shows skits as distasteful for making light of serious attacks. Additionally SNL also faced backlash by inviting Vice President Kamala Harris onto their broadcast which was done within one week of voting dates . FCC commissioner Brendan Carr raised a strong point regarding fairness alleging an attempt at skirting FCC’s Equal Time rules by excluding Trump’s campaign with his claim that Harris’ last-minute invitation as 'biased and partisan'. The Trump campaign team did not receive contact to offer airtime unlike Kamala Harris prior to general election during 2024, the results from their outreach could be a determining factor in election results.
Jimmy Kimmel organized a Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden campaign that successfully garnered over $30 million with attendees including celebrities such as George Clooney Julia Roberts former president Obama. This event showcases clear bias against Trump in the industry using media platforms to gather funding for opposing viewpoints. Stephen Colbert also hosted a successful fundraiser for the Biden campaign raising an additional $26 million. Kimmel further sent a DNC fundraising email endorsing Kamala Harris offering options to fund the Harris-Walz campaign by calling the VP ‘kind’ ‘brilliant’ plus ‘delightful’ also expressing his endorsement which creates a pattern of direct fundraising along with endorsements on the various media channels that many saw as negative influence on an otherwise public election.
Despite their efforts and attempts to sway the results Trump secured victory over Kamala Harris on November 5, leading many comedians to offer negative reactions on the various broadcasts. Colbert uttered ‘Well, f--- it happened again’ while on his show following results stating that Donald Trump after a long campaign driven to avoid jail won the election of 2024 Jimmy Fallon delivered a sarcastically comment during his program and showed considerable frustration regarding the 2024 result. Kimmel expressed his emotions on-air following election results showing sadness and even crying during broadcast expressing how negative the overall outcome was. Seth Myers told his viewers that a ‘part of his brain broke’ following results while Ronny Chieng even suggested any dual citizen viewers should travel elsewhere all signaling a large disconnect in entertainment communities following the result.