News Satire Roundup: June 2nd-June 6th

Sunday, June 2 – Re:  Jared Kushner’s visit to Israel, I liked that John took time to point out that a map is a shitty gift, made shittier by being given by Kushner, before getting into how gross it was to include the Golan Heights (with an arrow and the word “nice” written beside it, ugh.)  John also looked at a scandal involving the chief-of-staff of Tennessee’s House Speaker.  I loved the bit about how he bragged to his boss about hooking up in a restaurant bathroom for one minute.  The main story was on medical devices and the incredibly-lax FDA regulations over them, including implanted devices.  It’s insane that companies can get clearance based on house-of-cards-style precedence from previous devices with hardly any testing, and the part about surgical mesh for vaginal tissue straight-up scarred me.  Great ending with Jane Krakowski doing an informercial warning on the dangers of medical-device regulation.

Sunday, June 2 – Hassan opened with an update on the Indian election results.  I really enjoyed his tangent on the intense on-camera “Indianness” of the winning Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, going in deep on the multiple angles captured of his 18 hours of prayer in the Himalayan Mountains.  I also loved his point (answering trolls on Twitter) that comedians can’t sway elections, using George W. Bush’s two victories during the “peak John Stewart” era as evidence.  From there, he moved into the main story on the 1MDB scandal (not IMDb, as he noted.)  I didn’t know much of anything about it, so I appreciated the piece, which was mostly digestible despite dense content.  Looking at the trustworthiness of governments holding their country’s money in sovereign wealth funds, I loved comparing Norway to “a boyfriend without a password on his phone” and Russia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to “a boyfriend with a second phone.”

Monday, June 3 – Trevor started with Jared Kushner too – loved the jokes on him repeatedly answering, “Was birtherism racist?” with, “I was not involved in that” (and wondering if he says the same thing about slavery.)  Other blurbs on California’s Democratic State Convention (if John Hickenlooper gets booed, he can just pretend to be another candidate!) and Jay-Z as the first hip-hop billionaire (Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are in his new squad!)  Good piece on Trump’s visit to the UK; I died at the shade of, “Really?  All 52 bedrooms at Buckingham Palace just happen to be under renovation?”  Roy and Michael caught up with sports championships:  the National Spelling Bee, the NBA finals, and the first Mexican heavyweight champion of the world.  The guest, presidential candidate Eric Swalwell, looked at ending gun violence as his top priority and promised to listen to diverse voices where his own perspective was lacking.

Tuesday, June 4 – Loved Trevor’s comment that if he had abs like guys at Pride, he’d walk shirtless in parades year-round; this led into a bit about the gay content in Rocketman being cut Russia, with the great comparison of watching The Fast and the Furious without all the cars.  We also had quick bits on Rihanna clarifying the pronunciation of her name and a high school principal cribbing his graduation speech from Ashton Kutcher (like Trevor, I love that he changed “be sexy” to “be intriguing.”)  More on Trump’s U.K. visit – good-but-obvious joke that, if Trump really wanted to disrespect the queen, he wouldn’t have touched her back.  I also loved Trevor wondering if he has crowd-size-specific dyslexia re:  protests in London.  Jaboukie did a piece on socialism, “settling” for interviewing Bernie Sanders when he couldn’t get AOC.  Interesting interview with author Amber Scorah, who discussed leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Wednesday, June 5 – We opened on the GOP side-eyeing Trump’s plan to halt undocumented immigration via tariffs with Mexico, a few trolls in Boston wanting a “straight pride parade” (loved “Did you know heterosexual marriage has only been legal for like 4,000 years?!”), and a helicopter rescue that turned into a nightmare as the stretcher started wildly spinning in midair.  Trump’s last day in the U.K. led a story on Boris Johnson, looking at how he’s like Trump (Trevor compared them to two people who were intentionally separated at birth) and how he’s his own brand of awful.  Lewis reported on the rise of CBD and its unproven health benefits; loved him questioning the concept of CBD yoga and why you need the yoga if the CBD calms you down.  Guest Randall Park talked about Always Be My Maybe, discussing the importance of real representation while dodging compliments from Trevor.

Thursday, June 6 – Neat story on a D-Day veteran’s return to Normandy to parachute in a second time (loved the crack about how much pressure there was on the tandem jumper to get him in safely!)  I also liked the bit on Robert Downey Jr. low-key becoming Tony Stark, working with tech geniuses to combat climate change, and I laughed at the joke about Bernie Sanders railing against Walmart’s “starvation wages” in part because he’s a greeter there.  Next was a piece on Elizabeth Warren, looking at her past (great clip of her challenging Joe Biden at a congressional hearing) and the work she’s doing on her campaign.  We got the latest Trump tweets, with the note that the volume is increasing but engagement is going down – this tied in nicely to the show sending its Presidential Twitter Library to D.C.  James Corden was the guest.  I loved how excited he was to be hosting the Tony Awards and what he said about Broadway.