Trump and Bloomberg’s Twitter Fight: ‘Like if a Rap Battle Was on CNBC’
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2 Angry Men
President Trump and Michael R. Bloomberg traded insults on Twitter on Thursday, with the former calling the latter “Mini Mike” and “a 5’4” mass of dead energy who does not want to be on the debate stage with these professional politicians” (that is, other Democratic presidential candidates). Bloomberg responded by saying that mutual acquaintances in New York laughed at Trump behind his back, calling him “a carnival barking clown.”
“This is crazy. Two mega-rich dudes dissing each other in the most personal way. It would be like if a rap battle was on CNBC.” — TREVOR NOAH
“The sad part for me is that billionaire feuds used to be so much more dignified, you know? Yeah, back in the day, it wasn’t on Twitter. They would be like, ‘Mr. Trump, I have commissioned a devastating opera that disparages both you and your lineage.’ It’d be like, ‘Well, Master Bloomberg, at this very moment, a team of artisans is sculpting a middle finger from the world’s finest Italian marble. In eight to nine months, you will be truly owned.’” — TREVOR NOAH
“Trump spent the morning attacking Mike Bloomberg on Twitter and called him ‘a mass of dead energy.’ When he heard that, Mike Pence was like, ‘Hey, that’s my nickname!’” — JIMMY FALLON
“But I will say this: If I was Mike Bloomberg and I had $61 billion — which is what he has — this is how I would get in Trump’s head: I’d buy every ad on Fox News from now until November. I would ruin his precious Hannity time, his ‘Fox and Friends’ in the morning. Maybe instead of an election we should just put these two old billionaires on a jungle island with sharp sticks and force them to hunt each other, you know? Put it on pay-per-view, all proceeds go to the homeless.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
“In response, Bloomberg tweeted at Trump and said, ‘Behind your back people are laughing at you.’ Trump called it fake news and spent the next hour trying to look behind his own back.” — JIMMY FALLON
“Bloomberg has been rising in the polls, but there could be some hurdles for his campaign. In the past, he’s been accused in several lawsuits of creating an uncomfortable workplace environment for women, but he won’t release women who sued him from their nondisclosure agreements. Oh, good — yet another New York billionaire with a questionable history with women.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
The Punchiest Punchlines (Edition X)
“Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, is also speaking out. Last night in New Jersey, John Kelly defended the newly fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified against the president and criticized the president’s position on many subjects. Which is all well and good, but it’s now a year since he left the White House. This is like a smoke detector that goes off after your house burns down.” — JIMMY KIMMEL
“And then after those comments went public, Kelly was rewarded for his belated truth-telling the way anyone who turns on Trump is rewarded — with a nasty personal attack on Twitter. Trump tweeted: ‘When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper but like so many X’s, he misses the action.’ I’m sorry, do you mean the word ‘exes’? It’s not just spelled with the letter ‘x.’ When you say ‘x,’ people tend to think of the X-Men, and what X-Man would John Kelly be? The one who waits a month after Magneto destroys the city and then says, ‘We should have done something’?” — SETH MEYERS
“Then all of Trump’s exes were like, ‘Trust us — we don’t miss the action.’” — JIMMY FALLON
The Bits Worth Watching
The Ontario native Justin Bieber taught Jimmy Fallon how to play Canada’s national pastime on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”
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