Late-Night Hosts Take Aim at Trump and Haley Stevens on Election Eve
Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers all used their election-eve monologues to mock Donald Trump, and each of them also took a swipe at Michigan's Haley Stevens. The Hollywood Reporter reported the jokes on 3 November, the day of the 2026 midterm vote.
Stevens lost the Democratic primary for Michigan's Senate seat to Abdul El-Sayed, in a race that was bitterly fought. She then broke with her party's nominee. On Sunday, 1 November, she endorsed Republican Mike Rogers, the candidate she would have faced in November. NBC News reported the endorsement, and ClickOnDetroit said she had attended a church service with Rogers in Detroit beforehand. Democratic Representative Debbie Dingell called the move a "huge distraction," according to PBS NewsHour.
Stewart's target was the president's final speech before the midterms. Trump used it to talk about renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., and Stewart on The Daily Show made fun of him for it. Kimmel joked that the pool had been botched again and again, at a cost of $16 million.
Kimmel also ran through some numbers. He said Trump had held 30 rallies in the past 32 days before the midterm election. He also pointed to Trump's lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, which seeks $10 billion over a report that Trump drew a birthday card for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday. The paper has published that report, and Trump has sued over it.
Meyers' segment, which NBC posted on its website, carried a long title that covered several stories at once: "Trump Loses Alaska Court Case & Uncancels Rallies, Haley Stevens Crashes Out on CNN." The headline shows how quickly a single week's news can be stacked into one short run of jokes.
Late-night shows often close a campaign season with this kind of monologue. For the people who make them, the result is a few minutes of jokes that will be watched, clipped and shared before the polls open. For the candidates, it is one more voice in a crowded final week.
