‘After Midnight’ Host Taylor Tomlinson on Trump Election: ‘It’s An Honor to Be on Television While Women Are Still Allowed’
As the only woman in late night, comedian Taylor Tomlinson’s monologue was particularly pointed and honest on Wednesday night. The host of CBS’ “After Midnight” (who had added an opening monologue to her show at the start of its second season), Tomlinson darkly joked that “it is an honor to be on television while women are still allowed to be.”
In her opening, Tomlinson also shared some of her coping mechanisms in the hours following the re-election of Donald Trump to a second term, including re-watching “Game of Thrones” to try and remind herself of a better time, circa 2011.
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“Remember 2011, back when Joe Rogan wasn’t helping people decide elections,” she said. “He was just helping people decide if they were gonna eat bugs for money. Remember that?”
Tomlinson also noted that Trump’s return is a sign that reboots are terrible — and she said that as the host of one. (“After Midnight” is a remake of “@midnight” from Comedy Central.) Said Tomlinson: “Why does he have to be president? Usually, when you’re reintegrating an ex-con back into society, you just have to let them work at Baskin Robbins.”
Here’s her full monologue:
“I’m Taylor Tomlinson, welcome to the show. First off, elephant in the room, I am sorry if it’s your birthday today. That sucks. A lot of people today feel shell shocked and depressed and can’t believe they have to go to work. Me too. That’s what’s going on here. But I will say it is an honor to be on television while women are still allowed to be.
“How did everyone sleep last night? I mean, seriously, which sedatives did you take? I personally took a sleeping pill and then ate a family sized bag of jelly beans. And then, I’m not kidding. I started re watching ‘Game of Thrones’ to calm down. I was like, Maybe this will give me some perspective. Just desperately trying to get myself back to 2011. Remember 2011, back when Joe Rogan wasn’t helping people decide elections. He was just helping people decide if they were gonna eat bugs for money. Remember that?
I’ve been watching this Tiktok on a loop all morning.
“Was that too dark? Like the energy in here was like, ‘Fuck, that would be nice.’ Like, it wasn’t even funny at all. Everybody was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to be somewhere else and something else?’ Like, nobody in here had fun with that at all. Me neither. Oh, my God.
“We had been preparing in advance for today’s show, and we assumed we wouldn’t know the results of the election yet, but we do have the results. A second Donald Trump presidency. And I know people have said this before, but reboot culture has gone too far, and I say that as the host of a show that was rebooted.
“Why does he have to be president? Usually, when you’re reintegrating an ex con back into society, you just have to let them work at Baskin Robbins, I understand why, if you did that job.
“I’m honestly, really mad. I’m mad at everyone who comforted me the last week and told me it was gonna be okay. I’m mad at myself for believing this wouldn’t happen. I’m mad at CBS for hiring me so that I cannot immediately leave the country. It’s a lot of misplaced anger right now. I personally couldn’t look away from the news, but some people were able to keep busy. Just look at this screenshot someone tweeted of a text exchange they had with a friend around the time Trump won Pennsylvania.
“‘Oh, my God, I know Anora was so good. Wait, what?’ Is that as dark or darker than the cow video? What do you think? I choose to believe that this person isn’t uninformed and ignorant. They’re just turning to film for comfort, which, yeah, I get that. Hell, I’m gonna be camped out at the AMC all weekend crying at the Nicole Kidman ad. Like, ‘we do need that, all of us.’
“When the numbers started rolling in and it was looking rough for the Harris campaign, I could see the stress on news anchors’ faces. You know how when you’re on an airplane and there’s turbulence, you look to the flight attendants to see if they’re scared, or if they’re just like, chilling on their phones, getting shaken up a little bit? Looking at these news anchors was like, ‘Oh, great, we’re crash landing in hell. Cool, awesome.’ And then I switched over to Fox News to see what the tone was like over there, and they were all just lighting fireworks and kissing each other on the mouth with tongue.
“So it was a huge night for Republicans. They also took the Senate, and a lot of the news media is asking if a Republican Senate will keep Trump in check, which feels like asking the getaway driver of a bank robbery, ‘so you’re gonna make sure they spend the money wisely, right? You’re gonna save half for taxes and donate to sustainable charities, right?’
“A lot of people want solutions, so they’re posting today about what we can do to move forward, and I think that’s valuable. But also, let’s take a fucking second to be sad. If your friend dies, you go to the funeral and you say, ‘I really miss my friend.’ You don’t go to the funeral and immediately scream, ‘volunteer at the library!’ Like, yes, okay, I’ll volunteer at the library, but let me bury democracy first.”
Tomlinson was later joined by panelists Zach Noe Towers, Laura Peek and Guy Branum.
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