On Monday, the late-night TV hosts got serious as they talked about the horrific events in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend – and President Trump’s delayed reaction. On Tuesday night, their disbelief continued after the president’s “off-the-rails” afternoon news conference, in which he stated that there was blame for the violence on “both sides,” the white supremacists and the protesters.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert jumped right in: “It took Donald Trump two days to condemn the white nationalists and the neo-Nazis who held that rally down in Charlottesville. But even though many criticized how long it took, the president knew the right thing was to make the statement Monday, be clear about who was to blame, and then move on to the people’s business,” he deadpanned. “I’m just kidding. He held a press conference today in, I believe, the seventh circle of hell.”

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel also didn’t hold back. “It was supposed to be a press conference about infrastructure, and it ended with our president making an angry and passionate defense of white supremacists,” he told his audience, urging them to watch the “astonishing” conference in its entirety online. “I feel like I can say this with reasonable certainty: The president is completely unhinged.”

Here are the other elements that all of the hosts – including NBC’s Seth Meyers, TBS’s Conan O’Brien and CBS’s James Corden – covered on Tuesday:

— When Trump said there was blame on “both sides.”

Colbert: “What the hell are you talking about? (Trump voice) ‘You know, one side hates minorities. The other side hates people who hate minorities. OK, two sides. It’s just like D-Day. Remember, D-Day, two sides, Allies and the Nazis. There was a lot of violence on both sides. Ruined a beautiful beach. And could have been a golf course.’ ”

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Corden: “This is ridiculous. Trump’s the guy that walks out of ‘Star Wars’ thinking they didn’t have to blow up the Death Star. There was blame on both sides.”

— When a reporter pointed out that the neo-Nazis showed up in Charlottesville first, and Trump said, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

Meyers: “President Trump this afternoon gave a press conference that can only be described as clinically insane. You know that list of side effects at the end of a pharmaceutical ad? He apparently has all of them. He said among other things that ‘there were very fine people on both sides’ of the events in Charlottesville.”

Kimmel: “If you’re with a group of people and they’re chanting things like ‘Jews will not replace us’ and you don’t immediately leave that group, you are not a very fine person.”

— When Trump said, “Unlike the media – before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”

Kimmel: “That’s right, he’s very careful about that. Like the fact that Ted Cruz’s father killed JFK and Obama was born in Kenya. He’s a stickler for the facts.”

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Colbert: (Trump voice) “I need the facts, okay. Just ask the millions of illegal voters who refused to look for Obama’s birth certificate during my record-breaking inauguration. Okay? It’s all on the Obama wiretaps.”

Corden: “No, it’s true, he only makes a statement when he has the facts. You know, like when he told us how his inauguration crowd was the biggest in history. Or that time he told us Meryl Streep was a bad actress. And of course, that time when he said Robert Pattinson is too good for Kristen Stewart.”

— The unhappy expression of Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly:

Colbert: “This guy is a four-star general. Iraq, no problem. Afghanistan, we can do it. Twenty-minute Trump press conference? A quagmire from which our country will never emerge.”

Meyers: “Trump is so fully out of his mind, he broke a general. That guy’s been in wars!”

— When Trump declared that Stephen Bannon is “not a racist”:

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Colbert: “If the third thing someone says about you, unprompted, is ‘He is not a racist,’ you’ve got a problem. ‘Oh, you’d love Jeff. He’s nice, he’s good looking. Not a necrophiliac, I can tell you that.’ ”

O’Brien: “In the press conference, President Trump said that Steve Bannon was a good friend and not a racist. Then he said, ‘Oops, I meant to say, a good racist and not a friend.’ ”

— When Trump said, “I own actually one of the largest wineries in the United States. It’s in Charlottesville.”

Colbert: “It is not one of the biggest wineries in the United States, though he is one of the biggest whiners in the United States.”

Corden: “For someone who doesn’t want to make a statement before he has all the facts, maybe he should have looked at that winery’s website. Because this is what it actually says: ‘The winery is not owned, managed or affiliated with Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization or any of their affiliates.’ So the winery may not be his, but at least now we know where he gets all his sour grapes.”


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