Seth Meyers actually felt some sympathy for “Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday night, after watching a segment in which Kilmeade ended up running frantically around a Florida diner, looking for anyone to say they weren’t supporting twice-impeached former president Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
The segment came from Tuesday morning’s show, when Kilmeade was sent to a restaurant called Metro Diner in Ponte Vedra Beach. In the clip, Kilmeade first asks the crowd “who’s pumped up” for the 2024 election. When they all enthusiastically agree, Kilmeade begins rapid fire asking everyone there “Who’s your man” or “who’s your woman.”
By Meyers’ guess, Kilmeade and Fox News were hoping to get a lot of Ron DeSantis as an answer, because “they’re hyping Ron DeSantis” in an effort to “put the genie back in the bottle.”
As Kilmeade runs through the restaurant, each person says Donald Trump, with a smattering of Nikki Haley tossed in. Eventually, Kilmeade spots a woman wearing a DeSantis t-shirt, and asks how she feels about the idea of a “President DeSantis.” She admits “I like it,” but then refused to definitively say she’d vote for the Florida governor over Trump.
“Oh my god, that was like watching a gerbil trapped in a maze for a science experiment,” Meyers mocked. “Just, locked in there, desperately searching for a reward pellet. Also, it’s fun to watch Brian Kilmeade run around a diner while Smash Mouth plays, and at the same time think ‘He ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.’”
Indeed, Smash Mouth’s hit song “All Star” was playing in the background of the footage, as Kilmeade ran around. Meyers admitted he actually felt bad for Kilmeade, especially considering the fact that the woman essentially pulled a bait-and-switch on him with her shirt.
“Kilmeade ran to her like he saw a tunnel painted on the side of a mountain and thought ‘I’m gonna catch that roadrunner,’” he joked.
Of course, Meyers wasn’t surprised by the results of the informal poll, saying that the segment “perfectly encapsulates the problem” that Fox News is currently facing.
“No matter how hard they try to wriggle their way out of the situation they put themselves in, they are captive to the audience they created,” he said. “That’s why Fox is terrified of losing viewers in the aftermath of the election, and that’s why they were willing to do or say whatever was necessary to avoid losing them — even if that meant repeating outright lies that they knew were outright lies.”
You can watch Meyers’ full “A Closer Look” segment in the video above.
