Late-Night Comics Get Serious About Trump.
HARLOW: After President Trump's response to the deadly violence in Charlottesville, the tone of late night has shifted dramatically to outrage and condemnation. Watch.</s>JIMMY FALLON, LATE-NIGHT HOST: We all need to stand against what is wrong, acknowledge that racism exists and stand up for what is right and civil and kind.</s>SETH MEYER, LATE-NIGHT HOST: President Trump this afternoon gave a press conference that can only be described as clinically insane.</s>JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE-NIGHT HOST: It started -- supposed to be a press conference about infrastructure, and it ended with our president making an angry and passionate defense of white supremacists. The president, I feel like I can say this is reasonable certainty, the president is completely unhinged.</s>STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE-NIGHT HOST: I'm still recovering personally, still recovering from President Trump's kamikaze press conference yesterday where Donald let Donald be Donald. The consequences and our country be damned. And it was truly one for our ages, specifically 1931 to 1945. Let me just</s>HARLOW: Joining us now, CNN media analyst Bill Carter. Bill, some laughs there, but, you know, what they're saying rings so true and it's unbelievable what's happening. You have a new column on it this morning. You talk about what is the new normal, comedy outrage.</s>BILL CARTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, it seems like they're not just for laughs. They're definitely putting a point of view out there, and it's angry. I mean, it's truly angry and outraged that the president could possibly be taking these positions. It's very unusual. I mean, late night people, they really want people to have fun when they go to bed, and they're being challenged now, coming right in their face and saying this is something we've never seen before.</s>CUOMO: What do you make of the president's response, which is this kind of dual prong, one is I said it, I own it, I won't back off. But then, he is backing off. He's saying Lindsey Graham got it wrong. He didn't state a moral equivalency between the KKK and people like Ms. Heyer. Yes, he did. And then he says it's fake news misrepresenting. It's his own words. Just go look at the transcript.</s>CARTER: And that's the thing, that's the thing. We're seeing it all over everywhere on TV. It's him saying it. The media is not twisting it or presenting it in a different way. They're just covering what he says.</s>HARLOW: So, but how big of an impact does late night have? Because you interviewed Seth Meyers and he had an interesting take on the change he thinks he can or can't effect.</s>CARTER: Exactly. He knows he's preaching to the choir. People have already self-elected. They're not going to support these shows if they really support President Trump. They know he's going to get hammered every night. But I think there's a cumulative effect going on. It's all over the place now. People are playing these clips. A lot of these comments are funny but also really pointed and effective. I do think this is a sense that this is not like anything we've seen in late night before. They took on George Bush after Katrina, especially Jon Stewart. But it wasn't personal. Two late night guys, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers said, we've got to get this guy out. They basically called for him to be out of office.</s>CUOMO: But they've never had an opportunity like this. We've never seen that you don't have to exaggerate reality to create parody.</s>CARTER: Yes.</s>CUOMO: They've never been in this situation. We've never heard of anyone of any standing, let alone the president, saying the KKK, the Nazis, they're terrible, but they're not the only terrible ones. We've never heard that before.</s>CARTER: Yes, it's mindboggling and some of the lines -- they write themselves. When you say, well, there's not many side, there's only one side and that side has Nazis on them.</s>CUOMO: Right.</s>CARTER: It's very easy to sort of pick that out. The joke comes very easily. I think the late night hosts are saying can we do something else? They're overwhelmed by Trump. He overwhelms everything about comedy now.</s>HARLOW: Fallon, Jimmy Fallon with that monologue that got so much attention early this week. Now, he faced so much criticism during the campaign, going light on then candidate Trump, tussling hair, et cetera. This was a 180, credibility?</s>CARTER: I think Jimmy has realized and the show realized they're out of tone here. Most of the comedy community has one particular point of view on this. Jimmy is not a political comic. To his credit, he has his thing and he should stick to it. But I think even looked at this and said I have to address this. This is over the top. And he did it in an interesting way, talking about his own kids. And he basically said what the president did was shameful. He used the word shameful. That was really a pretty strong statement for him.</s>HARLOW: Nice to have you.</s>CUOMO: Bill Carter, and so it goes.</s>CARTER: We'll see it more every night I'm sure.</s>HARLOW: Great column. Go to CNNmoney.com. You can see it morning. We appreciate it. Thank you.</s>CUOMO: All right. So, the president decided to fight back, kind of. He says he owns what he said but now he's saying people are taking him the wrong way. We'll give you what his defense is. We have it all covered, next.