Late Night Hosts Take on Cassidy Hutchinson’s Trump and Capitol Riot Testimony: “Who the Hell Let Him Out of His Car Seat?”

The last-minute public hearing featuring former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection offered a well of material for late night television Tuesday.

The revelations of the “surprise witness” — a top deputy to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows — led to some unexpectedly shocking details about the day of the Capitol riot. Hosts Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and, for this week, Chelsea Handler unpacked those admissions and the testimony’s larger implications about how actively aware former President Donald Trump was about the day’s potential for violence in their monologues in response.

Much of their focus was on two issues from Hutchinson’s testimony: Trump allegedly throwing his lunch at a wall in a fit of rage over a Bill Barr Associated Press interview in which he confirmed there was no election fraud, and the former president, according to Hutchinson, attempting to seize the wheel from the backseat of a moving Secret Service vehicle after being told they would not be taking him to the Capitol amid the ongoing Jan. 6 violence there.

On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the host joked, “Always good when you need another Secret Service to protect the Secret Service, you know what I’m saying?” Fallon would at one point jokingly add, “Immediately the agents were like, ‘Who the hell let him out of his car seat?’”

Handler, who is guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week, spent a lot of her monologue on last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, but she also left room in her Monday show to connect the president’s Jan. 6 behavior to past actions.

“That is no way to treat the Secret Service — that is how you treat a contestant in the dressing room of the Miss Universe pageant,” Handler said, speaking to Trump’s alleged interaction with the Secret Service agent. “When grabbing the steering wheel didn’t work, he grabbed the car by the pussy.“

The Late Show host Colbert also spoke extensively about this moment in Cassidy’s testimony, zeroing in on her recollection — she wasn’t present for this particular event but had it recounted to her by the agent — that the former president then “used his free hand” and lunged toward his clavicle area. “He went for the throat. When you get into the Secret Service, you know you have to take one for the president, but you never expect to take one from the president,” Colbert said.

“Thank you for your service,” he added, miming the act of choking someone. “Let’s keep this part secret.”

The Daily Show host Trevor Noah offered up some of the most biting commentary on the revelation that Trump allegedly attacked one of his agents, calling the former president’s decision to fight his own protective detail “genius on Trump’s part.”

Said Noah, “He’s hitting the one person who can’t hit back. Yeah, they can punch back, but then they’ve got to jump in front of their own punch. Not to victim blame, but this is on the Secret Service, all right? You had four years to Trump-proof that vehicle — you knew who you were dealing with. There should have been a toy steering wheel in the passenger seat the whole time. Just let him think he’s driving and go back to the West Wing anyway.”

During his monologue, Late Night host Seth Meyers briefly recounted some of the similar key moments in Hutchinson’s testimony, including the thrown lunch — seen in its aftermath by the former aide as ketchup dripping from the wall — while also noting that Trump allegedly suggested the removal of the Capitol’s metal detectors, as the Capitol rioters weren’t “here to hurt me.” After noting the president had lunged at an agent, Meyers chimed in, “Isn’t that unreal? I mean, who has ketchup at lunch?”

Colbert and Noah also took time to comment on Trump’s food-slinging, both joking that the ketchup example provided by Hutchinson wasn’t the only time he’d responded in that way. “Evidently, the former president breaks a lot of dishes, which is why his handlers make sure his meals are served only in a bucket or edible bowl,” Colbert cracked.

Meanwhile, Noah noted he was “shocked to hear that Trump threw any of his food away,” adding, “this guy’s taken more selfies with food than some of his kids.

“You heard what she said — this wasn’t a one-time thing. Trump was constantly throwing food tantrums,” Noah went on to say. “But what’s interesting is she didn’t say ‘flipping the table.’ She said ‘flipping the tablecloth.’ So either Trump was an amateur magician, or he wasn’t strong enough to flip a table, so he just did the tablecloth.”