Seth Meyers has been taking so many closer looks at Ted Cruz and Fox News Channel lately, he’s gonna need some Visine to get the red(-state spin) out.
On Thursday’s “Late Night,” Seth’s “A Closer Look” segment first drilled down into the Texas senator’s refusal to wear a mask during a press conference, despite being asked to by a reporter. Meyers then nailed Fox News for, in his words, being “more desperate” to use their collective Joe-Biden-hiding-in-a-basement quip than “George Constanza was to use his ‘jerk store’ line.”
But neither of those is why we decided to write this clip up today. No, we just liked the coincidence that in it, Seth Meyers called “Hannity” crony Cruz an “asshole” on the same night Sean Hannity called Seth an “asshole.”
We knew, it. We’re surrounded by assholes.
Watch the Seth Meyers video above and the Sean Hannity one here. And here, we’ll point out that while “Late Night With Seth Meyers” tapes at about 4 p.m. ET, it does not air until 12:35 a.m. ET. “Hannity” is live at 9 p.m. ET. So the word choice is really just a coincidence.
We’re not going to definitively say who started this long-running (though generally a little less personal, or at least with fewer expletives) war of words between conservative TV host Hannity and liberal TV host Meyers, but Sean was surely responding to Seth’s “A Closer Look” from Wednesday night.
Two nights ago, the “Saturday Night Live” alum condemned Hannity’s story selection in the wake of the recent tragedy in Colorado. He also called “bulls—” on right-wingers invoking the second amendment after every mass shooting.
“On Monday, Fox News barely covered the horrific Boulder shootings in primetime,” Meyers said at the time.
“Apparently,” Hannity considered Joe Biden tripping on the stairs of Air Force One “much more important,” Meyers continued then. “My God, get your priorities straight.”
Anyway, here’s how the next night’s “asshole”-swap played out.
First, Meyers said Cruz took the mask request as “another opportunity to be a giant asshole.”
“Man, Ted Cruz is the Steph Curry of being a giant dick: he never misses a shot,” Meyers said.
Meanwhile, on “Hannity.”
“You want to call me sociopathic, which you have called many others before, like Trump, like Karl Rove, you use the word a lot,” Hannity said of Meyers, “but you’re just another limousine liberal, socialist, hypocritical asshole who does nothing but spew anti-GOP hate and as virtually nothing positive or productive to add to any political dialogue. You have zero credibility, zero integrity, zero interest in what the truth is, especially about complicated issues, and that’s why very few people watch your show. And you’re not funny, ever.”