Late night hosts dug into the sexual harassment allegations against former Today show anchor, Matt Lauer, on Wednesday night.
Lauer, who was terminated from his Today position Wednesday morning ahead of a damning Variety report from multiple women claiming years of sexual misconduct and harassment from the anchor which included giving a sex toy as a present, which came with a note of how he wanted to use it on his colleague, to exposing himself to another female employee in his office.
On the Daily Show, host Trevor Noah lamented that the entire situation of sexual harassment currently surrounding so many in media is “so shit for women, because no matter how aware it happens, you’re losing. Either it’s happening to you, or it’s your show that’s affected.” Noah showed footage of Today hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announcing the news of Lauer’s termination on the NBC program that morning. “They just found out, and then they had to report it…The stage manager was just like, ‘Three, two, we fired Matt Lauer, and we’re live.’ ”
The Comedy Central host went on to question just how many figures in news media had been accused of sexual harassment, citing Bill O’Reilly, Charlie Rose and Mark Halperin. “Soon, they’ll have enough to start their own perv news network,” Noah quipped, while a graphic showed a logo for PNN.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Tonight at 11/10c, Trevor reacts to Matt Lauer’s sudden firing over sexual misconduct allegations. <a href=”https://t.co/6HLh0w6QsI”>pic.twitter.com/6HLh0w6QsI</a></p>— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) <a href=”https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/936052182637363201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Stephen Colbert mocked Trump’s Twitter response to the Lauer allegations on The Late Show. Trump tweeted this morning, “Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!”
Colbert responded, citing a fact check report from The Washington Post: “By ‘fake news’ do you mean ‘more than a dozen women accusing Trump of improper conduct or sexual assault?’ Is that what you mean?”
“Listen up, you don’t get to comment,” Colbert continued. “That’s the pot calling the kettle at 3 a.m. and asking what she’s wearing.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>TONIGHT: The President, never shy about offering his take on the news, was among the first to react to today's bombshell revelations about Matt Lauer. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/LSSC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#LSSC</a> <a href=”https://t.co/032flK7GJF”>pic.twitter.com/032flK7GJF</a></p>— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) <a href=”https://twitter.com/colbertlateshow/status/936049032140546048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 30, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Over on TBS, Conan O’Brien addressed Lauer in his opening monologue, saying, “Longtime Today show anchor Matt Lauer was fired because he was caught engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior. Afterwards, Lauer said, ‘Maybe having all those people looking in the windows wasn’t such a great idea after all.’ “
NBC’s Late Night host, Seth Meyers, tweeted earlier on Wednesday afternoon that his show for that night had been taped the day before due to the Christmas tree lighting in front of his studio at 30 Rockefeller Center, therefore he would be unable to comment on the Lauer story until Thursday.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.