TV's prominent comedians devoted the airtime criticizing former President Donald Trump's just launched visa initiative, called the "gold card," characterizing it as a obvious pay-for-access arrangement for the affluent.
Opening his show, Stephen Colbert offered a satirical Christmas tune directed at the president. "He's making a list, checking it twice, before giving that list to the agents at ICE," he crooned. "Trump ... ruins all he comes into contact with."
Colbert's target was the new program that allows foreign individuals to acquire U.S. legal status for an investment of a million dollars, or "top-tier" tier for 5 million. The program's portal promises processing "with unprecedented speed."
"A brief thought for you to affluent applicants: prior to you pay, what about Canada?" Colbert remarked.
He noted that the scheme is also meant to "extract cash" from companies wishing to hire foreign workers, involving large payments. "That's a lot of fees, though if you sign up, you additionally get a complimentary stay at a hotel of your choosing – if it's the that one hotel," he continued.
"The most thorough vetting the government has ever done," stated Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, "that $15,000 vetting to ensure these applicants truly qualify to be in America."
"That is important, you have to prove you're fit to be an American," Colbert responded. "Question one: how many burgers would you eat for a free T-shirt?"
On his own program, Jimmy Kimmel dubbed the initiative the "U.S. Access Express Card."
"It's a card that will allow affluent overseas citizens to live here," he said. "For a million dollars, you get legal resident status, you get a pathway to citizenship, and a presidential pardon for one major crime of your selection."
"Maybe it's time to revise that message on the Statue of Liberty – never mind your tired masses. Pay a million bucks, you're in!" he remarked.
Kimmel lampooned the simplicity of the form, observing it is "more difficult to start a Wordle account." He lamented that Trump "sees citizenship is something you can sell, like a condo."
"Exactly, the top people are the rich people," Kimmel quipped. "That's what Jesus constantly said! It's in the Bible. He says it's simpler for a camel to go through the eye of a needle provided that you pay the needle a million dollars."
Meanwhile, Seth Meyers addressed Trump's declining approval ratings during financial anxiety. "People gave Donald Trump a second term since they were upset about the economy," he explained.
This week, in a effort to tackle affordability, Trump conducted a briefing in front of a selection of food items, where he behaved peculiarly to some cereal.
"What a nice job, I think I'm going to take some of them with me to my home and have a lot of fun," Trump stated. "Like the Cheerios, I haven't had Cheerios in a long time."
"He is so extremely weird," Meyers said. "What do you mean, you're going to take them home to your cottage to have a lot of fun with them? What's the plan with those Cheerios?"
Meyers finished by mocking conservative media defenses of Trump's financial record. "Perhaps rather than complaining, you should give him a shiny trophy similar to what FIFA did," he laughed.
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