By Don Terry & Ben Emos | Tuesday, July 29, 2025 | 5 min read

Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver — the list of comedians who have been accused of “hyper-partisan” behavior over the past several years is long. Their nightly monologues, full of jabs at President Donald Trump, have triggered frustration from right-wing pundits and Trump supporters who accuse them of pushing liberal agendas under the guise of comedy. But the truth is, what some see as partisan targeting is often just comedians doing what they’ve always done: mining the absurdities of those in power. And let’s be honest — few political figures in modern American history have given comedians more to work with than Donald J. Trump.

It’s not just about policy or ideology. Trump has, time and again, handed comedians material on a silver platter. This is someone who publicly lied thousands of times while in office, exaggerated his wealth and achievements, and promoted conspiracy theories with the casual ease of someone ordering fast food. He spoke in unfinished sentences, meandered in press conferences, mocked disabled reporters, attacked the free press, and praised dictators — all while tweeting in all caps like a man lost in a group chat. For comedians, that’s not a political stance — it’s a feast.

Some defenders of Trump argue that comedians are unfair because they didn’t go after Obama or Biden with the same force. But that misses the point. The reason Trump was — and still is — a target isn’t because comedians hate him. It’s because he’s inherently theatrical. The man hosted a reality show for over a decade. He created a public persona that thrives on drama, confrontation, and spectacle. He rebranded political discourse into a kind of ongoing cable news soap opera, complete with cliffhangers, villains, betrayals, and plot twists. That’s not just politics — that’s satire-ready TV.

But it goes deeper than just public bluster. Trump has been the subject of serious legal scrutiny. Multiple fraud cases, bankruptcies, hush money payments, and more recently, criminal indictments — all of these are not only newsworthy but incredibly surreal. We’re talking about a U.S. president charged with mishandling classified documents and allegedly trying to overturn an election after his first term in office. That’s not your average Tuesday night sketch material. That’s historic. And history, when it veers into the ridiculous, begs for comedy.

Then there’s the darker stuff — his name showing up in the Jeffrey Epstein files, his close relationships with morally questionable figures, the countless accusations of misconduct that have followed him for decades. These are sensitive issues, to be sure, and good comedians know how to navigate the line between outrage and absurdity. But the presence of his name in those kinds of documents raises questions and eyebrows. In a media environment that already thrives on scandal, Trump has become the embodiment of excess — excess in behavior, language, controversy, and consequence.

Compare that to past presidents. George W. Bush was mocked for his gaffes and foreign policy blunders. Barack Obama was occasionally ribbed for his aloofness or over-reliance on a teleprompter. But these were appetizers. Trump, by contrast, has been a full buffet of satire, open 24/7.

Let’s go back for a moment to the Clinton era. When Bill Clinton denied his affair with Monica Lewinsky, the late-night world didn’t go easy on him. From Jay Leno to David Letterman, comedians went in hard. Clinton was roasted nightly, and rightly so. But that was one affair. One lie. One scandal — and it dominated the comedic landscape for months. Now contrast that with Trump, who has had dozens of scandals, often running concurrently. Should comedians be expected to ignore that simply to appear “fair”?

There’s a kind of selective amnesia at play when people complain about partisan comedy. Right-wing media was relentless when Clinton lied, and again during Obama’s presidency — even when there wasn’t much scandal to work with. So when Trump provides not just a few sound bites but an entire ecosystem of drama, is it really bias to highlight it?

To be clear, comedy doesn’t owe anyone neutrality. It never has. Comedy, especially political satire, has always punched up — from George Carlin to Richard Pryor to Jon Stewart. It exists to hold the powerful accountable through ridicule. If that ridicule seems lopsided, maybe it’s because the imbalance of absurdity is real. Maybe the problem isn’t with the comedians, but with the subject matter.

There’s a reason why Trump sketches became staples of late-night television. Alec Baldwin’s impersonation on Saturday Night Live became iconic not because of personal hatred, but because the character practically wrote itself. A president who live-tweets his rage at 2 a.m., who boasts about crowd sizes at funerals, and who once suggested injecting disinfectant to fight a virus — that’s not a partisan caricature. That’s the news.

Of course, comedians have their personal views, and that will always color their material. But blaming them for the disproportionate focus on Trump is like blaming firefighters for being busy during a five-alarm blaze. They’re just reacting to the flames.

In the end, the role of comedy isn’t to provide balanced airtime to political parties. It’s to reflect and distort reality in ways that reveal deeper truths — truths that are sometimes easier to digest when they’re laughed at. And if Trump finds himself the punchline more often than others, maybe it’s because he’s been the loudest joke in the room.

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