NOT BACKING DOWN

Seth Meyers Fires Back at Trump for Calling His Jokes ‘Illegal’

“That is your First Amendment right, which I have too, right?” Meyers questioned.

Seth Meyers had a brutal response to President Trump’s latest social media rant against him.

Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday, “Seth Meyers of NBC may be the least talented person to ‘perform’ live in the history of television... In fact, he may be the WORST to perform, live or otherwise.”

Switching into all caps, Trump argued that Meyers’ “100%” anti-Trump material was ”PROBABLY ILLEGAL!!!”

Meyers’ first problem with Trump’s post was the claim that he talked “endlessly about electric catapults.”

“I’m not the talk-about-catapult guy. Just ask my friends,” Meyers said, noting that it was Trump who has been incessantly rambling around catapults for years now.

Meyers, 51, added, “Oh, friends are... How would I describe this to you? Okay, so they’re like... They’re like people who enjoy spending time with you, independent of financial and legal favors you can grant them.”

Meyers acknowledged that Trump, 79, had the right to post about him, joking, “That is your First Amendment right, which I have too, right? We all have it, right?”

Meyers also called out Trump’s repeated claims that he doesn’t regularly watch Meyers’ show.

“You wrote, ‘I watched his show the other night for the first time in years,’ but just ten months ago you wrote, ‘I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers,’” Meyers noted.

“Stuck?” Meyers said to Trump. “I find it hard to believe you let other people decide what to put on. Everything about your vibe screams, ‘I call the clicker!’”

Meyers demanded an answer from the president: “Which is it? You watched me for the first time in years this week, or you watched for the first time in months in January? Do you not remember?”

Meyers concluded the segment by arguing that Trump’s Truth Social posts were a distraction:

“What we should be talking about instead is the government shutdown you’re not solving or the food assistance you refuse to fund,” Meyers said to Trump. “Working families are struggling while you renovate your bathroom and you build your ballroom, and that’s why your approval ratings are in the toilet.”

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Trump has a history of insulting and threatening liberal late-night hosts, most often Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.

In September 2025, when Kimmel’s show was temporarily taken off air due to apparent pressure from a Trump-appointed FCC chairman, the president publicly celebrated.

“Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible,” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding, “That leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

Trump’s feud with Meyers, however, goes back the longest.

Meyers famously ripped into Trump hard when he hosted the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Trump had to sit there in the audience during Meyers’ whole bit, listening to the crowd’s laughter at his expense.

“Donald Trump has been saying that he’ll run for president as a Republican,” Meyers famously said in his speech, “Which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”

For more, listen to Seth Meyers on The Last Laugh podcast.

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