News Satire Roundup: June 10th-June 14th

Sunday, June 10 – First up was Donald Trump claiming that preparation wasn’t that important before the North Korea summit, followed by the Philippines’ President Duterte being horrific, variously forcing a woman to kiss him on television and advising soldiers to shoot female enemy soldiers in the vagina so they’ll be “useless” – shudder.  The main story, an update on Stupid Watergate, focused on tactics used by Fox News to undermine the investigation.  John emphasized why this is so important, that public opinion will affect the chances of Trump trying to shut the investigation down (as well as the chances of him getting impeached if it comes to that,) and he elaborated on how the network equivocates, distracts, and ignores facts.  Finally, John called the British law that prevents footage from Parliament being shown for satire, which prevented U.K. viewers from seeing last week’s “And Now This” on the House of Commons.

Monday, June 11 – Opening blurbs on a Saudi fashion show with drones instead of models (with Trevor adding the Harry Potter theme!) and White House staffers taping together various presidential records that Trump insists on tearing up, because the oblivious knows no bounds.  Good story on the G7; I loved Trevor’s riff on how, if he was accused of colluding with Russia, regardless of whether or not he did it, he wouldn’t keep bringing up Russia.  Ronny filled in for Michael for a sports piece with Roy.  As the “international correspondent,” he was ostensibly there to talk about the World Cup, but Roy interrupted him at every turn – Ronny’s blistering disdain for the newest Triple Crown winner was everything.  A panel of guests tonight:  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, veteran Brigette McCoy, and retired Col. Don Christensen to discuss sexual assault in the military and efforts to repair the horribly-broken system currently in place.

Tuesday, June 12 – No surprise, the big story tonight was the North Korea summit.  The world leader Trevor commended for surprising us all by pulling it off despite the odds was, of course, Kim Jong-un; I liked Trevor’s tangent about the effects of fame, with people screaming and clamoring to take selfies with a murderer, and Trump openly admitting he’ll make up an excuse if the “deal” doesn’t pan out was predictable but aggravating.  The show also looked at Trump’s apparent strategy for the summit, approaching it from a real estate perspective.  I don’t know what to make of the pitch, “Why bomb the beaches when you could just build hotels on them?”  The line, “We’re gonna start you out in a one-bedroom democracy,” was amazing.  LA mayor Eric Garcetti was the guest, talking homelessness and immigration and stopping just shy of announcing his candidacy for the presidency in 2020.

Wednesday, June 13 – I liked the angle on the raccoon-scaling-a-skyscraper story, that people are that desperate for happy news to root for.  Next, we had an Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That, featuring Michael Cohen potentially flipping, the AT&T/TimeWarner merger (so all your awful customer service can come from one place!), North America getting the bid for the 2026 World Cup – with Trump insisting fans and players won’t be affected by the travel ban, which, why would that still be an issue in 2026?? – and Bill Clinton badly answering questions in response to the #MeToo movement.  Lewis had a good Back in Black on school security, from 8^th graders getting “welcome to high school” bulletproof plates to an elementary school teaching lockdown protocol to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”  The guest, economic Ian Bremmer, talked about why his believes globalism failed and populism stepped in to fill the void.

Thursday, June 14 – I mostly agreed with Trevor on racist journal entries from Einstein – regrettable to read, but chances are most heroes from the past had ignorant views.  Next, he delighted over Don Jr. appearing on Fox & Friends to wish his dad a happy birthday before moving onto Russia’s preparations for the World Cup.  I know they’ve used the “Russian trying to smile wonders why they don’t bite afterwards” joke before, but I’ll gladly take it again – too funny.  Roy did a field piece on 287(G), which incentivizes polices departments to cooperate with ICE.  I adored him turning the pro-deportation guy’s statistics around on him, pointing out that if only 5% of their apprehended criminals are undocumented, then they actually have a citizen crime problem.  The guest was Mike Colter, talking about season 2 of Luke Cage and the advantages of drawing out a superhero story for a TV show.