Seth Meyers shared his thoughts on the election results with a blend of humor and seriousness. Most importantly, he had a message for the person who will become our first woman president.
Seth Meyers, host of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, expressed his opinions on the results of the election. As he’s done throughout the past year, Meyers cracked jokes while also delivering a serious message. Last night, his message included words of encouragement for whoever ends up being our nation’s first woman president.
Meyers talks about how he and his wife went to go watch the election returns at a friend’s house. Before they left, he put his 8-month old son to bed and told him “When you wake up tomorrow morning, we might have our first female president.” Now, we all know that didn’t happen. Meyers says that he instead told his son that “for the first time in our history, our president would be a steak salesman.”
He also joked about how his dog, an Italian greyhound named Frisbee, needed comforting. “Being Italian,” he said, “she doesn’t know if she gets to stay.”
Going back to talking about his son, Meyers expressed how his baby boy did not have a care in the world, happily munching on a sliced pear. For parents of older children, especially daughters, Meyers had sympathy. But, he added, somewhere out there is someone who will have the honor of being America’s first woman president. She may currently be a senator, she may be a college student, or she may be a toddler like our newly elected president.
"“We don’t know who you are but I imagine this moment today will be a defining one for you, one that will make you work harder and strive.”"
Meyers then added that he hopes he gets to live to see her inauguration, whoever she may be, and he hopes that his mother does too. His mother, who also happens to be named Hillary, was excited at the possibility of having our first woman president. He was visibly choked up as he described how sad he was for her.
“Whoever you are, wherever you are, go get it!”
Meyers also acknowledged that the sadness, anger, and fear many of us are feeling now is probably similar to the emotions that Trump supporters felt that led them to make the choice they made. But he also admitted that, as a white man, his feelings are a fraction of those felt by other communities — LGBTQ, immigrants, Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, and Muslim-Americans.
Like many of us, Meyers also thought that Trump might not actually want to be President, that perhaps he just wanted the attention and validation it would bring him. Meyers reminded viewers of an offer extended to Trump earlier in the year: drop out and NBC will give you a 13-episode show. That offer still stands and has now been bumped up to 22 episodes in a primetime slot, right after The Voice.
Related Story: 10 Things We Are All Doing To Cope During This Election Result
Wrapping up the segment, he pointed out a few positive results of the 2016 election. He gave a shout out to Tammy Duckworth, an Asian-American veteran from Illinois who won election into the Senate. He also mentioned Ilhan Omar, a newly elected member of the state House who is now the first Somalian-American lawmaker in the nation’s history. And, of course, there’s the legalization of recreational weed in California which could not have come at a better time.