Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Trevor Noah award Round 1 to Nancy Pelosi, catch up on Venezuela

Nancy Pelosi beat Trump in Round 1, late-night hosts decide
(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Daily Show)

On Wednesday, the State of the Union showdown between President Trump came to a head — and ended with a whimper, not a bang. "Trump delayed his State of the Union, and now people are saying Pelosi 'owned' him," Jimmy Fallon said on Thursday's Tonight Show. "Then Putin said, 'Stay in your lane, girl!'" He made some jokes about a marijuana company passing out free weed to unpaid government workers, then turned to "the situation in Venezuela," where "their former president is being forced out. It's a pretty complicated story, everybody's covering it, but not every network covers news the same way." He showed three different news networks at 7:50 Thursday morning, and one of them wasn't like the others.

"This is pretty historic," Trevor Noah agreed at The Daily Show. "A 35-year-old just swore himself in as the new president of Venezuela. Yeah, the world's first selfie inauguration — very millennial." He moved on to "another formerly prosperous country that is falling into unrest, the United States," and "Day 34 of the government shutdown." Trump's scrapping the State of the Union is just one of the mounting effects of the shutdown, Noah said. "Look at that: Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi facing off, and Trump blinked first. Which of course we knew would happen, because Nancy Pelosi does not blink."

"Pelosi really got the best of him," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live, cracking a spanking joke. "It wasn't the kind of coverage the president likes to get — he likes to win — so to change the narrative, I guess, he held an impromptu press conference tonight from the Cabinet Room." Trump warned about another "caravan" and made a show of blaming himself for the shutdown, but a solid majority of Americans actually do blame him, Kimmel said, and "his sycophants aren't helping." He had a wry laugh at Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' "Can't we all just get a loan?" comment. Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.