FUNNY PAGES | ‘That Was Easily the Funniest Seizure I’ve Ever Seen’
Comedians mock Trump’s bizarre rant about the Battle of Gettysburg
Editor’s Note: “The Funny Pages” is our occasional look at how late-night TV comedians look at politics and the issues of our day.
Perhaps Donald Trump should leave history to the historians.
The presumptive Republican nominee for president dove into a rambling and unhinged diatribe at a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend about the Battle of Gettysburg, a major skirmish of the American Civil War fought in 1863, in which more than 50,000 Americans perished.
It was probably a very ill-advised tangent, as the late-night hosts took it to spin comedic gold on their Monday night programs, on a day in which the former president was already a target for ridicule given the start of his first criminal trial in New York.
That’s a fact that ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel was all-too-happy to exploit.
“You have to hand it to this guy. On the weekend before his unprecedented criminal trial begins, he somehow manages to overshadow it with this broken-brained interpretation of what happened at Gettysburg during the Civil War. Buckle up everybody, this is an all-timer,” Kimmel said, before rolling a clip of Trump’s rant.
“Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was, the battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable — I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways,” Trump said at the rally. “It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, Pa, to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E. Lee, who is no longer in favor, did you ever notice that, no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill. He said, ‘Wow, that was a big mistake.’ He lost his great general, and they were fighting. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys!’ But it was too late.”
“Well, that was easily the funniest seizure I’ve ever seen. He always sounds like a kid who forgot he had an oral report due on that day,” Kimmel quipped, after the clip finished.
Over on Comedy Central’s popular Daily Show, host Jon Stewart offered a surprisingly similar take.
“And by the way, we’ve got enough trouble keeping track of our own wars. Like this weekend, our former president and illustrious historian Donald J. Trump spoke near one of America’s most hallowed battlefields. And if you thought Lincoln consecrated Gettysburg with his soaring rhetoric, well, bu-bu-buckle up,” Stewart said, before playing essentially the same Trump clip.
After the clip finished, to laughter from the studio audience, “That is plagiarized almost directly from my seventh grade book report: ‘Gettysburg. Wow.’ I did not do well.”
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