News Satire Roundup: May 21st

Sunday, May 21 – With the exception of a brief bit at the end, in which John tried to cram a 20-minute story on the TSA into the last three minutes of the show, there was just one story tonight:  the Russia investigation, or as John calls it, “Stupid Watergate.”  All the latest on this has been in the news so much that the show didn’t give me much that I hadn’t already heard, but John of course included some great jokes (my favorite being how he admonished the 6’8” Comey for trying to blend in with the Oval Office drapes instead of and pretending to be a tree.)  However, I thought he had some good points to make about the story.  As unpleasant as it may be to think about, he reminded us that Trump could very well wriggle out of this one, and even if he doesn’t, the line of succession doesn’t inspire much confidence.  I also really liked his point about all the other news that’s slipping by while everyone is looking at the implosion at the White House.

The Daily Show was off this week (and Last Week Tonight is off next week, what’s a news satire fan to do?), and it increasingly feels like even a few days off is too much for this show.  The past two weeks especially have seen an explosion of news from the White House – it seems like lately, every episode has started with Trevor saying, “Okay, so we didn’t have enough time to put together a story on today’s late-breaking news, but we’ll get to it tomorrow, we promise.  Now, for our story on yesterday’s late-breaking news…”  Team Trump has been continually upping the ante, and it seems like not a day can be wasted in even trying to cover all this stuff.

And, as the show has been demonstrating with its “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That” segments, that isn’t a good thing.  Not just because this tire fire is bad for the U.S. as a country, which it is, but also because it’s so insane and so unceasing that it makes you think it’s the only story in town.  The developments and reveals just keep piling up, and the show has to devote a huge chunk of every night to covering it, and as a result (like John pointed out on Last Week Tonight,) other newsworthy stuff is tumbling by without anyone’s notice.

I do appreciate that, even in the midst of all this, the show is still spending at least a little bit of most episodes away from Trump, although that time isn’t always spent on other big news stories; sometimes it’s just a brief, silly respite from all that, like Ronny’s recent piece on flying cars.  Breaking news?  Not at all.  “Thanks, show – I needed that”?  Yeah, maybe.

As such, “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That” is turning into a nice recurring piece to momentarily catch hold of some of the many news stories that are rushing past us in the deluge.  When the segment first started, I wasn’t sure it was all that necessary.  I thought, “News item, punchline, repeat – isn’t that basically just Weekend Update?”  However, “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That” is made up of more than blurbs.  It really is more like a series of mini news stories, often including relevant clips along with a few jokes and an insight or two.  And more than that is Trevor’s “this is not normal” reiteration of how, ordinarily, they would’ve devoted an entire segment to each of these bits, whether due to their importance, insanity, or just pure entertainment value.  But there’s no time.  Because this Trump stuff never stops coming, and they’re left to cover the rest however best they can in the time remaining.