“Late Night” host Seth Meyers on Wednesday mocked President Donald Trump for secretly sneaking off Air Force One last month amid an apparent threat — and abandoning unsuspecting White House staffers and members of the press aboard.
“Do you think now the press should stop doing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner after we know the president put them all on a plane that was a decoy plane?” Meyers joked on an episode of his podcast “A Closer Look: Out of Office” released Wednesday.
Trump was departing Turkey following a NATO summit there when he was informed of an Iranian assassination threat and secretly carted inside a catering truck onto a smaller plane. He later argued that he “was at greater risk” on it compared to the journalists he left behind.
“I mean, this story,” Meyers said on the podcast. “I thought we’d heard everything that was great about — not great, let me stress, none of it’s great — that we had heard all of the craziest details about President Trump leaving Turkey on the old Air Force One.”
He continued, “And yet, it turns out that he moved to … another plane. The press and some of his staff were on a plane assuming he was on that plane. He wasn’t on that plane ’cause it wasn’t safe to be on that plane.”
White House Correspondents’ Dinner Association president Jacqui Heinrich said last week in a memo to the White House press corps that she has asked the administration to develop a more robust “press safety” protocol for future dinners following Trump’s Air Force One stunt.
Stricter security measures might also have prevented the correspondents’ dinner shooting in April, and while the incidents are far from funny themselves, Meyers offered a particularly cheeky idea for how Trump could turn his catering truck escape into bona fide comedy gold.
“I will say, if it was fun — if it was a good-natured thing — it would be very fun if he said he wasn’t coming and then a big catering truck drove down the aisle and they played rock ‘n’ roll music and he came out the back,” the “Late Night” host joked on his podcast.
Catch the bulk of Meyers’ comments starting at 2:30:
Trump drew massive criticism for once again raising serious concerns over press safety.
“Late Night with Seth Meyers” writer and podcast co-host Sal Gentile on Wednesday proved nothing is too serious to joke about, however, and said the next correspondents’ dinner should only be held “if everybody can fit into the catering cart and do it there.”