US late-night hosts have scrutinised Donald Trump’s decision to skip the Super Bowl, suggesting he is avoiding the event due to fears of being booed. The president, who attended last year’s game, told reporters he would not travel to Santa Clara, California, because it was “just too far away”, despite owning his own plane and having made multiple trips to Asia and the Middle East.
Seth Meyers, host of Late Night, highlighted Trump’s contradictory reasoning, noting that the president had previously been loudly booed at an NFL game in Maryland in November. “Of course Trump is worried about getting booed,” Meyers said, pointing to low approval ratings and recent electoral losses for his party.
Stephen Colbert, on The Late Show, addressed Trump’s attempts to deflect from the latest batch of Epstein files. When asked about the documents, Trump urged the country to “get on to something else”, a comment Colbert mocked as disingenuous given Trump’s repeated mentions in the files. Trump later attacked CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, telling her she “never smile[s]” and calling her “the worst reporter”.
Vice-President JD Vance defended Trump’s remark as “perceptive”, prompting Colbert to quip: “It is perceptive of the president to recognise that when he’s in the room, women don’t smile.”
Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel questioned the box office performance of the Melania documentary, which earned over $7m in its opening weekend. Citing a Daily Beast report, Kimmel suggested blocks of tickets were purchased and distributed to Republican activists and senior citizens. The film has a 5% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes but a 99% audience score—higher than The Godfather.
