Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah tried to separate President Trump's words from reality on Tuesday night after he disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles to the White House.
Trump claims he did it because "they disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem." The only problem? No Eagles player kneeled during the national anthem this past season.
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View StoryThe president made his statement after reports started to spread that perhaps fewer than ten members of the Eagles organization had accepted the invitation to go to the White House.
"The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow," he said, as reported by CBS. "They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country. The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better."
"Donald Trump is blaming a group of black guys for something they didn't do," Colbert joked on "The Late Show." "They'll have to rename the Eagles the Central Park 53."
He then laughed that Fox News nevertheless ran the story, featuring images of the Eagles players kneeling. As one of those players was quick to point out via Twitter, the shot was an image of him "praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem."
"Fox News never lets the truth get in the way of a good story," Colbert joked, and apparently neither does the president.
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View StoryRather than just cancel outright, though, Trump hosted what he dubbed a "Celebration of America," which Colbert thought was a great idea for the summer. "I think this could work," he said. "Let's get some fireworks, maybe a big parade. Call it the Fifth of June!"
One of those symbols was the singing of "God Bless America," which did not go well for Trump at all. The president was seen stopping and starting to sing along, as if he didn't know the words. Hollywood dragged him immediately on social media, while Trevor Noah asked his "Daily Show" audience to go easy.
"The song's only been around for 100 years. He hasn't had time to learn the words. Don't judge him," he said.
Noah then questioned Trump's decision to pick this fight with the Eagles. "The Eagles come from Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania is a swing state," he noted. "A swing state that Trump only won by about 44,000 votes, which is less than one stadium full of Eagles fans."
The truth, Noah suspected, really had nothing to do with the national anthem as much as it had to do with the lack of attending Eagles. "Trump is cancelling events if not a lot of people show up," he said. "That must be a new policy. Huh." At this, he threw up the infamous picture of Trump's inauguration crowd.
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View StoryThat same picture showed up again in a tweet from Philadelphia Chief of Staff Jane Slusser, who tweeted the image alongside a picture from Philly's Super Bowl celebration. She captioned the tweet, "Our party was bigger than yours."
Our party was bigger than yours #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/HIZk8xnJF1
@janeslusser
After showing that tweet, along with a scathing statement NBC presented from Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney calling Trump a "fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend," Colbert threw a flag on the play.
"That's a personal foul." he said. "Totally necessary roughness." He then flipped the bird and added, "First down."