It Took Less Than Two Weeks for the Late-Night Epstein Jokes to Stop Being Funny

Late night has rarely excelled at being very funny when it comes to Trump. If it’s not Jimmy Fallon ruffling his hair, it's the other hosts giving impassioned monologues or doing a Powerpoint presentation on the president’s many hypocrisies. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to call bullshit, it’s important to inform, but well-written news segments aren’t really the backbone of great comedy. It’s a conundrum the Veep writers touched on: Reality under Trump is beyond parody. Most jokes just feel like commentary. 

But the Epstein files drama seemed like a gift for the cabal of late-night hosts. Trump is clearly very sensitive about the subject (one tends to be in regards to credible allegations of being a child rapist) and has been lashing out every day in response to the mounting evidence against him. Plus, hosts got to enjoy a very rare occurrence: The MAGA hoards (at least some of them) were finally angry at their tyrant overlord. 

The whole thing has kept Stewart, Colbert and Meyers very well fed. For every new detail about Trump’s very intimate relationship with Epstein, Trump loses a high-profile MAGA follower and lashes out. He’s currently trying to arrest President Obama in an effort to turn our collective attention away from the birthday-card doodles he sent to the child trafficker, or the fact that the Department of Justice informed Trump back in May that he was in the famed Epstein files. 

It seems like it should be an endless mine from which to draw. Look at pervy Trump and his jilted followers! Haha! In actuality, the well is already starting to run dry. For starters, it’s the same story, just with new details. Evidence emerges that Trump is a sexual predator and weirdo, Trump refutes and causes chaos in response. That’s not a recent development — it’s been the case since the man first set his eyes on the Oval Office. 

Trump’s bad behavior isn’t surprising, but so much of the humor in response to it still seems to rely on shock value. In many ways, the whole situation feels like the hosts are trapped in a “Why did the chicken cross the road?” set-up. The punchline can vary, but after the tenth time you’re not going to laugh. 

But it's not just the repetitive nature of the situation; late night jokes are most hindered by what hosts are willing to actually say. Constrained by the rules of network television and the very icky subject matter, everyone’s keeping it relatively clean. Jon Stewart got closest to the comedic mark during his 29-minute screed about Epstein, the end of Colbert, and corporate buy-in for Trump. He definitely said “fuck” a lot. But even still, the actual jokes related to Trump’s birthday card to Epstein felt like the stalest part of the segment. 

This isn’t to say there’s no humor to be found in the moment — it's just that unless there’s an effort to find some new angles on the situation, a willingness to take a bit more risk, maybe even be a bit more crude, these jokes aren’t going to be funny any more. I’ve certainly stopped laughing.