Seth Meyers: Trump is starting an 'authoritarian' war on the free press
On Thursday's "Late Night," Meyers used his "Closer Look" segment to analyze Trump's raucous first press conference as president-elect, in which he shut down a reporter from CNN, which Trump referred to as "fake news."
"It's gonna be the new 'Bye, Felicia,'" Meyers joked. "'Bye, fake news.'"
But in fact, while the unverified claims in the endlessly talked-about intelligence dossier might be false, CNN did not publish those specific claims (though BuzzFeed did). Meyers thinks this could be an eerie foreshadowing of how President Trump treats reporters doing their job.
"Trump's hostility toward the press is the kind of thing you usually see in authoritarian regime," Meyers said. "In fact, in an especially creepy move, Trump stocked the press conference with employees who laughed at his jokes and shouted out supportive answers to his rhetorical questions."
Among the jokes, as Meyers pointed out, was Trump saying, "I'm also very much of a germaphobe," referring to a particular lewd allegation in the dossier.
"That's the president-elect joking about how he couldn't have been in a room where Russian prostitutes were urinating on each other because he's a germaphone, just for a where we're at as a nation," Meyers said.
While he was at it, Meyers also pointed out that in a 2015 Hollywood Reporter article, Trump said, "I'm not germophobic."
"We should all admit we're living in the Upside Down with Barb," Meyers joked, nodding to "Stranger Things."
Meyers also spent some time tackling Trump's potential conflicts of interest with the business his family will be running, and Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson's own past business ties to Russia.
Watch the Seth Meyers video below: