No Joke: Late-Night TV Hosts Target Trump 30 Times More Than Biden
From the perspective of late-night joke writers, there’s really only one person running for president.
A whopping 97 percent of the jokes Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon told about the candidates in September targeted President Donald Trump, a study released Monday found.
That’s 455 jokes about Trump and 14 about Democrat Joe Biden, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.
That doesn’t even count 64 jokes made about Trump’s family or administration, the study said.
“When Trump’s onstage, everyone else is blacked out,” Robert Lichter, communication professor at George Mason, said. He’s been studying late-night humor and politics since 1992.
Republicans are usually targeted more than Democrats by the comedy writers, but the difference has never been this stark.
The closest was the 2016 campaign, when Trump was the butt of 78 percent of the jokes to Hillary Clinton’s 22 percent, the center said.
It may present a real challenge for the comics if Biden defeats Trump in next month’s election.
What will they have to make fun of?
“I think they will find a way to keep making jokes about Trump, even after he leaves office,” Lichter said.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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