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      Late Night Finds Trump to Be His Own Worst Enemy

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      “Yeah, Trump was, like, ‘I just saved the economy from me. You’re welcome,’” Jimmy Fallon said on “The Tonight Show.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Marked Safe From SelfJust hours after instituting new global tariffs on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reversed course and announced a 90-day pause for some countries.Late night hosts were united in believing that Trump needed to act swiftly to safeguard the economy from his own actions.“Yeah, Trump was, like, ‘I just saved the economy from me. You’re welcome,’” Jimmy Fallon said on “The Tonight Show.”“Thank God he is there, to stop him from doing the things he does there.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Ah, yes, ‘The Art of the Deal’: create a global crisis and then dig yourself halfway out. It’s truly masterful, Donald.” — DESI LYDIC“You don’t get credit for releasing someone you trapped in your basement. That’s not how it works.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSON“It’s been fun watching this lunatic gamble our life savings this week. It’s like — it’s like handing your Social Security check to your dog and sending it to Caesar’s Palace: ‘If the dealer has 16, stay, OK? Stay.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“President Trump today announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for some countries and increased the duty on Chinese imports to 125 percent. Where did he learn his trade policies, from a kid in an elevator — just pushing random buttons to see what happens?” — SETH MEYERS“Come on, Trump, just admit that you started a game of chicken and you got too scared to finish it.” — DESI LYDIC“With the tariffs paused, the U.S. now has three months to work out all its relationships with all these countries. Basically, our economy now mimics the exact plot of ‘90 Day Fiance.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Yippy and Queasy Edition)“Trump said that he paused tariffs because people were getting ‘yippy’ and ‘queasy.’ Then Trump tried naming the other seven dwarves.” — JIMMY FALLON“Sorry, I tend to get a little yippy when my retirement plan starts to look like the elevator from ‘The Shining.’” — DESI LYDICWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ Has Its Title Backward

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      This dating show isn’t about farmers looking for women. It’s about the agrarian fantasy that has women dreaming of farms. Almost 80 years ago, Universal Pictures released a film called “The Egg and I.” It starred Fred MacMurray as Bob MacDonald, a newly decommissioned soldier back in his civilian duds. He tells his new bride, Betty, played by Claudette Colbert, that he engaged in some self-reflection down in his foxhole. War made him think about what’s really important: “the basic things” like “love and food and babies and things growing out of the ground.” So he has decided to quit his job and buy a chicken farm.When “The Egg and I” came out, in 1947, a carton of eggs cost 55 cents, which is about $8 in today’s money. In the intervening decades, the agrarian dream has held steady, both as a premise for comedies and a very real thread in the American psyche. As of 2025, you can indulge that dream simply by opening your phone: Social media is packed with down-home fantasies featuring agricultural influencers, rural “tradwives” or the swineherds on TikTok. As you sit scrolling in a grimy D.M.V. waiting room, what could make you swoon like an expansive wheat field and miles of open sky?And on television, you need only tune into Fox’s “Farmer Wants a Wife,” which recently began its third season, to get a fantastically rosy picture of what Bob and Betty MacDonald’s life might look like today. The series follows the contours of a standard reality-TV dating show, but it clearly aims to offer some folksy respite from the California-scented mating rituals that normally populate the genre. It imagines a dreamy alternative to the headaches of urban dating: No apps, no open relationships, no semiprofessional D.J.s. Just a farmer and his spouse. The simple life.American agriculture is, by all accounts, really hard.And the premise is simple: Over the course of some three months, four eligible yeoman hunks select potential life partners from among a group of women. The women hail from across the United States, though the major metropolitan areas of Texas seem especially well represented. They are identified by their professions too: This season brings a bounty of nurses and nannies, but also a “chief of staff” (for whom? of what?) and one woman whose job is listed only as “pharmaceuticals.” These contestants move into the men’s homes, on or near one of four farms. There are dates, many of which bear an unusual-for-TV resemblance to normal American courtship. Instead of the helicopter rides and therapy circles of the “Bachelor” franchise, the farmers and their could-be wives picnic in pickup trucks, take in college football games and spend afternoons fishing. They drink beer!But there is a catch for these women: They have to prove themselves at chorin’. “Farmer Wants a Wife” delights in the spectacle of women with fresh blowouts being goaded into shoveling dung, trying and failing to compete with Eva Gabor’s elegant detachment in old episodes of “Green Acres.” Layered atop the near-constant pop-country music is a secondary soundtrack of squeals and screams as contestants touch a grub for the first time or struggle to mount a horse. According to recaps, when the show first ran, briefly, in the early 2000s, one woman learned of her elimination after a task that involved reaching inside a cow’s rectum.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Late Night Frantically Tries to Keep Up With Trump’s Tariffs

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      “I’d say he’s like a bull in a china shop, but at 104 percent, I can’t afford to say that,” Desi Lydic said of President Trump on “The Daily Show.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Doing the MathPresident Trump’s latest tariffs — which, among other things, raised import taxes on Chinese goods to 104 percent — went into effect at midnight on Wednesday.Desi Lydic described Trump as “out of control right now” during Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”“I’d say he’s like a bull in a china shop, but at 104 percent, I can’t afford to say that.” — DESI LYDIC“OK, this is getting really serious. We’ll know exactly how serious once we ask China to do the math for us.” — DESI LYDIC“China said the tariffs are ‘a mistake on top of a mistake,’ which is also what Trump said when Eric was born.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“How is he coming up with these numbers, I don’t know. ‘What do you think about a tariff of 100 percent on China?’ ‘Not enough, make it 104.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump isn’t messing around with China. Now he’s threatened to not invite them to his birthday party.” — JIMMY FALLON“As a result of the tariffs, Americans are now racing to buy iPhones before prices increase. Yep, iPhones and toilet paper, our two most essential bathroom items.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Dodgers Edition)“At a White House event yesterday celebrating the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series championship, President Trump said that the team ‘showed America that it’s not about individual glory,’ adding, ‘but I decided to invite you anyway.’” — SETH MEYERS“President Trump praised star player Shohei Ohtani and added, ‘He’s got a good future, I’m telling you.’ Not exactly a bold prediction. ‘[imitating Trump] I think that guy who won three M.V.P. awards could turn out to be a pretty good ballplayer!’ Any other predictions you want to make, Nostradamus? ‘[imitating Trump] I think that Taylor Swift is going to sell some concert tickets someday!’” — SETH MEYERS“[imitating umpire] His brain is outta here!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Donald Trump met with the world-champion Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House, where Trump used the opportunity to deport Shohei Ohtani.” — GREG GUTFELDThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and Ed Sheeran surprised fans by busking in a New York City subway station on “The Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe actor and comedian Bill Hader will appear on “Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney.”Also, Check This OutYoko Ono and John Lennon’s famed “Bed-In” for peace in 1969.Charlie Ley/Mirrorpix, viq Getty ImagesA new film and a biography offer more opportunities to assess Yoko Ono’s contributions to culture. More

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      The Truth About Soap Operas!!!

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      Storytelling boiled down to the bare essentials.If you’ve never watched a soap opera, the first thing to know is that they have a way of drawing you in despite yourself. Before the age of streaming — when most households had one, maybe two TVs, a Windows PC and no smartphones to speak of — my mother would set a timer on our VCR to record her favorite soaps and play them back in the living room on weekends. During the week, my father, sister and I couldn’t care less about “General Hospital,” with its sax-heavy theme song and dramatic monologues. We weren’t interested in whether or not Nikolas Cassadine would help his mother, Laura Spencer, save Lucky, his kidnapped half brother, or allow his resentment over Laura’s abandoning him feed into his grandmother Elena’s increasingly implausible revenge schemes. But during those listless Saturday mornings and barren Sunday nights, when there was nowhere to go and nothing to do, we’d sit down and watch with her. Soon we’d be hooked. My hometown in West Tennessee, with its cow pastures, gravel roads and fields of corn and cotton, looked nothing like Port Charles, the fictional city in New York where “General Hospital” takes place. It was, however, small enough for everyone to be in everyone else’s business. Folks from around my way have long memories and can tell you a little something about what your parents and grandparents got up to back in the day. I come from a large extended family who has lived in the same town for several generations, and on the handful of occasions I overheard my grandmother on the phone with her sisters, it was hard to distinguish the town gossip from the dialogue of a soap opera. I couldn’t help comparing the show’s plots and characters to my real life. The tangled roots of my family tree, for example, bear a strong resemblance to the complicated Spencer family: My father has often told the story of a man who pulled into my grandparents’ driveway as he and his brothers played in the yard. The stranger knocked on the door and introduced himself to my grandfather as his son — my father’s half brother. How can I not compare that yarn to Lucky’s surprise at his half brother Nikolas’s abrupt appearance at their baby sister’s hospital bed after anonymously donating the bone marrow that saved her life? There is, of course, something inherently ridiculous about the plot. Still it manages to dramatize the essential emotions such a discovery evokes: surprise, betrayal, hurt.Soap operas have a reputation for over-the-top melodrama, but in truth, they taught me to think of such revelations in psychologically sophisticated fashion. Soap operas are where I first learned how morally dubious, unforgivable acts can become, to some degree, comprehensible. The revenge plots, falls from grace, redemption arcs, double-crosses, doomed romances, love triangles and reversals in fortune do more than entertain — they allow the audience to arrive at a more nuanced understanding of human psychology.In soap operas, as in life, there are no true heroes or villains. Every character occupies both positions at one point or another, as yearslong story arcs invite the audience to revise their opinions on characters they thought they had pegged. Lucky begins his life as a plucky boy-next-door before he enters a brief phase as a philandering cop who eventually becomes a Robin Hood figure whose heroism convinced audiences to forgive his morally questionable behavior. Audiences experienced this transformation over two decades of daily serial storytelling in which they watched him mature from an innocent child into a father struggling with drug abuse. Watching Lucky grow up, one day at a time, over the course of decades, allows for a type of narrative intimacy that few modes of storytelling can replicate. As a result, these characters can seem as dynamic as real people. In dramatizing the sort of growth and development that can rarely fit into a few seasons of prestige television, soaps allow viewers the opportunity to judge characters’ actions within the full context of their fictional lives. It’s because I grew up watching them that I can’t help being curious about people’s psychologies and personal histories.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Book Review: ‘Slayers, Every One of Us,’ by Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs

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      In a fizzy joint memoir, Jenny Owen Youngs and Kristin Russo capture what it was like to create a popular podcast for fellow superfans — and how they kept it going even after breaking up.SLAYERS, EVERY ONE OF US: How One Girl in All the World Showed Us How to Hold On, by Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs“The story you most often hear about divorce, about heartbreak, is the story of an ending. A light switch flicked into the Off position,” writes Jenny Owen Youngs in “Slayers, Every One of Us,” a memoir written with her ex-wife, Kristin Russo. “But what if you clicked the bulb back on?”Restoring the power is the dominant theme in their book, with that light source being the creative partnership the two achieved through their podcast about “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” even as their romantic partnership went dark five years after their 2013 marriage. The book is narrated by both women, with each providing her perspective on their shared history in alternating sections. Russo (a speaker, a consultant and an “Italian-born, Long Island-raised triple fire sign”) comes off as the more ebullient and emotional partner. Youngs (a musician and songwriter who has “always been a bit more grounded in reality”) is more sardonic and taciturn.Boom-and-bust romance memoirs are common, but mix in fervent fandom and original music and we’ve got ourselves a different approach to the well-trod ground here — all spurred on by a 1990s television show about a girl with superhuman strength fighting evil with help from her pals. (The book’s title comes from an inspirational speech, given by Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, to a room full of young women in the final episode of the series: “I say my power should be our power. … Slayers, every one of us.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jon Stewart Can’t Stomach Trump’s Stock Market ‘Medicine’

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      The “Daily Show” host said America’s economy was “in the midst of a beautiful metamorphosis, turning from a simple caterpillar into a dead caterpillar.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Bad MedicineStock markets have been hammered by President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which he insists will eventually revitalize the American economy.Jon Stewart had a different take on Monday’s “Daily Show.” He said the economy was “in the midst of a beautiful metamorphosis, turning from a simple caterpillar into a dead caterpillar.”“[imitating Trump] Hey, Mom, look — no economy!” — JON STEWART“President Trump likened the U.S. to a sick patient and his trade policies to an operation in a Truth Social post last week and said, ‘THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED AND IS HEALING.’ Sounds great, until you remember that the surgeon didn’t go to medical school.” — SETH MEYERS“You’re all acting like the tariff regime is a tried-and-true remedy: ‘Oh, of course, this is the medicine that’s always prescribed!’ Except the last time it was tried, 100 years ago, we had a Great Depression.” — JON STEWART“And tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1929.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, guys, everyone is still talking about President Trump’s new tariffs and how they’re impacting the economy. Trump defended them by saying, ‘Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.’ RFK Jr. heard and was, like, ‘Then why did you hire me?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Trump thinks that he’s a medicine expert because he’s the same color as DayQuil.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Hole in None Edition)“After the White House reported that President Trump won the senior club championship at his Florida golf club, the Washington Post reported that he tied for first with another player. But in the end, the Supreme Court gave it to Trump.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s good to see him relaxing. Killing the economy can be stressful.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Of course he won. Anyone who beats him gets deported to El Salvador.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“[imitating Trump] What’s my handicap? I’d say a complete inability to empathize with my fellow human beings. That’s a big one.” — SETH MEYERS“Also, buddy, you won the senior club championship at a resort with your name on it. That’s like my kids bragging that they beat me in Uno. They win Uno for one reason only: I want the [expletive] Uno game to be over, and I’m sure people who golf with Trump feel the same way.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Monday’s “Late Show,” Stephen Colbert talked with Senator Cory Booker about his recent 25-hour speech on the Senate floor.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe “White Lotus” star Walton Goggins has some explaining to do on Tuesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This OutJasmine Amy Rogers brings charm to the title role, but “Boop! The Musical” leaves you wondering why it exists.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBetty Boop, the flapper of early talkie cartoons, now has her own subpar merch grab of a Broadway show, “Boop! The Musical.” More

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      Walton Goggins Knows ‘The White Lotus’ Had to End This Way

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      “I realized that there was really no other conclusion,” the actor said in an interview on Monday about the season finale.This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of “The White Lotus.”A man with a name like Rick Hatchett was unlikely to die in his bed.He didn’t. In the Season 3 finale of “The White Lotus,” Rick, played by Walton Goggins, gunned down Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), whom Rick had long believed to be his father’s killer. (A posthumous twist: He was actually Rick’s father.) Then Rick was shot, in the back, by the gentle but ambitious security guard Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong). Most tragic: Rick’s sunshiny girlfriend, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood), was mortally wounded in the crossfire. With her dying in his arms, Rick fell into the hotel’s lily pond. In that moment, Goggins believes, Rick finds peace.“For me, it was being released from pain,” he said.On the morning after the finale, Goggins, a celebrated character actor currently also starring in “The Righteous Gemstones” and “Fallout,” discussed fate, love and why the story would have turned out differently if he and Rick could have somehow had a few beers together. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Did you feel that this ending was inevitable? Was Rick always meant to die?Yeah, I do believe that. I didn’t see it coming when I read the scripts. But after I read them and absorbed them, I realized that there was really no other conclusion. It couldn’t have ended any other way.In the previous episode, he stopped himself from killing Jim. In the finale, he can’t resist. Why?His life has been defined by this single event [Jim’s murder of his father, which turns out to be a false story his mother told]. He has allowed this event to become his life story. Who is he without this villain in his life? Because without it, he would have to take responsibility for the decisions that he’s made and for not moving past it. Being face-to-face with his tormentor allowed him to express this deep feeling — all he needed in that moment was for this person to bear witness to his pain. That surprised Rick as much as anyone else. Reading it the first time, I thought that he was going to pull the trigger. When he didn’t, I was in tears about that and overjoyed for this revelation and this moment of peace.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The White Lotus’: Jason Isaacs on His Character’s Fate in the Finale

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      “Storytelling is magic,” Jason Isaacs said. “It’s sleight of hand, it’s delivering a surprise ending that people don’t see coming.”Isaacs, 61, best known for playing villains in “The Patriot,” “Peter Pan” and the Harry Potter films, was speaking via video call a few days before “The White Lotus” Season 3 finale. A keen amateur magician, he had already performed a couple of onscreen card tricks. His work on “The White Lotus” is also a kind of conjuration.He plays Tim Ratliff, a Durham, North Carolina financier. Tim’s blood runs blue, as do the letters on his Duke T-shirt. (Duke is reportedly upset at the association.) Confronted with past malfeasance and facing the loss of all he has inherited and worked for, Tim spends his Thai vacation overdosing on his wife’s benzos and contemplating murder-suicide. That he can make Tim engaging even in the sweaty maelstrom of an entirely internal crisis speaks to his actorly gifts.“I don’t know what acting is, and I don’t know how I do it,” Jason Isaacs said. “It’s an animal instinct.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesNot least among them is a way with misdirection. (Spoilers start now.) In Sunday’s season finale, Tim sets out to poison his family with a fatal batch of piña coladas only to change his mind a sip or two in. (Even his youngest son, Lochlan, played by Sam Nivola, who later took a dose via a protein shake, was spared.) Though Tim had spent the whole of the season running from his fate, he ultimately accepted it and trusted that his family would accept it, too. So that’s a nice surprise.Isaacs, of course, knew this from the start. “I read all the scripts,” he said. But watching the finale with his castmates on Sunday, he felt strangely moved. “We were all of us holding each other’s hands and watching and crying our eyes out in a rather embarrassing way,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More