Kimmel on Trump’s trading cards: “We already have them — they’re called subpoenas” | Late night TV recap

Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel had a field day with Donald Trump’s “big announcement” teased this week on his social network, Truth Social: his debut NFT collection of digital superhero cards.

“Trading cards! Not even real trading cards – digital trading cards,” he scoffed. “Which is another way of saying nothing. At least the last time you got a red hat, now he’s selling you nothing.

“Did you know you used to be the President of the United States?” he said while playing clips from Trump’s video announcement, in which he said the price ($99 each) “doesn’t sound like a lot for what you’re getting.”

“Yes, it does,” Kimmel replied. “Seems like $99 is too much, actually.”

The NFT announcement was “like QAnon meets QVC,” he added. “I know we say ‘this is crazy’ a lot, but this is crazy. He’s selling NFTs! It’s like he’s a crypto bro or something. While he’s running for president! And by the way, we already have Donald Trump— trading cards – they are called subpoenas.

“This has got to be the most pathetic announcement of all time,” he concluded, “and that includes when they announced Eric was born.”

Stephen Colbert

For his final monologue of 2022, Stephen Colbert also tore into Trump’s NFT collection.

“That’s right, you read that right. The ex-President of the United States, the former most powerful man in the world, has launched a line of trading cards,” said the Late Show host. “It’s Gropémon with Pikacoup. This is the least worthy attempt at post-presidential merchandising since the launch of Tickle-Me-Truman.

“He’s a business genius, jumping into the NFT market when it’s at its hottest,” Colbert said. “Then he releases an exclusive line of rotary phones.”

The cards “allow you to collect all your favorite characters from the expanded former presidential universe, because every card is him,” he added. “There’s—and these are all real—the guy who plays golf, he endorses gold, he wears a hat that says Dow just like they do on Wall Street, and he steals the torch from the Statue of Liberty.”

All of these cards are, as Colbert said, “equally stupid,” including one of Trump standing on the 45-yard line holding a football, dressed as a pilot standing on Earth, and as an astronaut wearing sunglasses.

The fine print for the digital cards includes the line “you understand and agree that the NFTs have no intrinsic monetary value”.

“Solid,” laughed Colbert. “Reminds me of Arby’s slogan: We make absolutely no promises or guarantees that what we have is meat.”

“In a way, all this is gratifying to me,” he concluded, “because a monster who tried to install himself as our fascist strongman is now reduced to selling a series of trading cards.”

Seth Meyers

Trump’s big announcement “turned out to be so much more pathetic than anyone could have imagined,” Seth Meyers said on Late Night.

“You also have to love the timing of a former president launching an NFT line the same week a crypto fraudster is arrested,” he added, referring to the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas on eight charges of fraud.

Meyers also mocked Trump’s promotional strategy, which included a video in which the former president said, “Remember, Christmas is coming and this is a great Christmas present.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Meyers replied. “I don’t care if you’re the biggest Trump fan in the world – if on Christmas morning you give your spouse a thoughtful gift in a beautifully wrapped box with a bow, which they get to open and physically hold in their hands, and then they turn and tells you, ‘Your present isn’t here, it’s a digital trading card of Donald Trump as a sunglasses astronaut,’ you’re getting a divorce.”

“This proves once again that for everyone involved in the January 6 coup attempt, things will not end well,” he concluded. “In Trump’s case, he’s such a pariah that he’s fooling around with digital trading cards on a social media site no one has heard of.”