Late Night's Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers Take a Not-Laughing Turn Against 'Liar' Donald Trump

The late-night hosts skewered Trump's attempt to end the birther controversy

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Published on September 20, 2016 11:05 AM

Donald Trump attempted to put the Barack Obama birther controversy to rest on Friday by finally declaring the president was born in the United States – but it seems he only sparked more mockery.

Both Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers dedicated segments of their shows Monday night to the 70-year-old Republican candidate’s admission, calling Trump a “liar” and a “racist.”

Both comics have relentlessly made Trump the butt of their monologues for months. But the tone of Monday night’s segments was more biting than yuk-yuk, and comes at a time when polls suggest the presidential race is tightening, with Trump now plausibly finding a path to the Electoral College votes he needs to win.

And last week, their NBC colleague Jimmy Fallon was slammed by the media and Twitterverse for his jokey, kid-glove treatment of Trump when the candidate was a guest on The Tonight Show.

“President Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump asserted on Friday.

“President Obama was born in the United States, period?” Meyers reiterated quizzically. “F— you, exclamation point!”

“That’s what’s called a firm grasp of the obvious,” Colbert said on The Late Show of the presidential candidate’s comment. “Next I assume he’s going to announce that water is wet, that bears poop in the woods, and that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president.”

Trump placed blamed on Hillary Clinton for starting the birther controversy in her 2008 campaign.

“That claim seems a little suspicious,” Colbert said. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you are a …” he paused as if trying to find the proper word, before playing a clip of Trump saying “world-class liar.”

The business mogul then claimed he “finished” the conspiracy back in 2011 when President Obama released his long-form birth certificate.

“No, you didn’t,” Colbert said. “And I know you didn’t, because I was alive and on TV.”

He added, “But you know what, memory’s a tricky thing. Maybe I remember it one way and Donald Trump is a liar.”

Does Donald Trump Rattle You?

Meyers echoed Colbert’s sentiments, calling out Trump’s bigotry. He even used the Republican nominee’s own tweets and interview clips to prove Trump’s attempt to knock down Obama as recently as last year.

“Trump built his career on a racist lie because he’s a racist and a liar,” Meyers stated. “And instead of denouncing that lie, the GOP doubled down on it completely. And now Trump is trying to trick people again by convincing them he was never really a birther at all, and that it was Hillary Clinton who started it.”

Meyers also skewered Chris Christie for defending Trump’s birther lies – and on a day when prosecutors in the Bridgegate trial alleged that Christie himself lied when he said he knew nothing about a plan to tie up NYC-NJ commuter traffic as political revenge.

“Say what you will about Hillary Clinton’s email server but it never stuck an ambulance in traffic, you cartoon gangster,” Meyers snipped.