Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host-of-the-week Jordan Klepper and NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers finally acknowledged the existence of the Fauci Hearings on their Thursday shows and eagerly stepped up to defend him. According to Klepper, the hearings featured Republicans trying to reduce a complicated topic to “a performative partisan filter," while Meyers blamed President Trump for any of the federal government’s public health apparatus's trust problems.Klepper gave the story the most attention and summarized his feelings by declaring, “And look, this is not to say Donald Trump is the one big villain of COVID. There is no one big villain of COVID. Well, except maybe COVID. He was a bad dude! It was an unprecedented pandemic that we spent years stumbling through, trying to find some patchwork of solutions that would protect our health while keeping our society from total collapse.” The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper says of the Fauci hearings "Did our leaders make mistakes? Of course they did! Should we try to find out what we did wrong? Of course. But that was not what was happening with Republicans this week. They were doing the only thing we do anymore:… pic.twitter.com/L9Nx5u7WFg— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 31, 2026 Klepper kept going, “Did our leaders make mistakes? Of course they did! Should we try to find out what we did wrong? Of course. But that was not what was happening with Republicans this week. They were doing the only thing we do anymore: Shove a complex issue through a performative partisan filter.”That may sound all well and good, but at the time it was presented as simple: either accept Fauci and others’ recommendations or be a grandma killer. Klepper is also part of a trend that wants to concede that one can ask tough questions of Fauci, but the moment anyone actually does, it becomes a partisan clown show. Shoving complex issues through partisan filters is also what The Daily Show does on a routine basis. Over on NBC, Meyers did not devote nearly the same amount of time to the Fauci Hearings as Klepper. Instead, he only told a couple of jokes about them, and the first had nothing to do with the actual hearings, “Dr. Anthony Fauci testified yesterday before the Senate Homeland Security committee on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Please don't be us, please don't be us,’ said Taylor Farms.” Seth Meyers also discovered the Fauci hearings, but made them about Taylor Farms and Trump, "During the Senate homeland security committee hearing yesterday with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Republican Senator Rick Scott criticized Fauci for destroying the federal government's credibility… pic.twitter.com/MvRUz6w2vw— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 31, 2026 As for the actual substance of the hearings, Meyers sought to redirect attention to Trump, “During the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing yesterday with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Republican Senator Rick Scott criticized Fauci for destroying the federal government's credibility on public health. What? Your boss literally told us to drink bleach, which after ten years of him, I’m starting to warm up to the idea.”Trump did not literally, or even figuratively, tell people to drink bleach, but Fauci and others did literally tell us to stay six feet apart from each other even though there was no scientific basis for that.Here is a transcript for the July 30 show:Comedy Central The Daily Show7/30/202611:11 PM ETJORDAN KLEPPER: And look, this is not to say Donald Trump is the one big villain of COVID. There is no one big villain of COVID. Well, except maybe COVID. He was a bad dude! It was an unprecedented pandemic that we spent years stumbling through, trying to find some patchwork of solutions that would protect our health while keeping our society from total collapse.Did our leaders make mistakes? Of course they did! Should we try to find out what we did wrong? Of course. But that was not what was happening with Republicans this week. They were doing the only thing we do anymore: Shove a complex issue through a performative partisan filter.But it's not going to do anything for us to throw Anthony Fauci in prison. It's not even going to do that much to Anthony Fauci. I mean, threatening an 85-year-old with life in prison? That's kind of like putting a kid in timeout 10 minutes before school is over.***NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers7/31/202612:38 AM ETSETH MEYERS: Dr. Anthony Fauci testified yesterday before the Senate Homeland Security committee on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Please don't be us, please don't be us," said Taylor Farms. "We can't handle another one."“We've got some good news and some bad news. People are no longer blaming the diarrhea on youDuring the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing yesterday with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Republican Senator Rick Scott criticized Fauci for destroying the federal government's credibility on public health. What? Your boss literally told us to drink bleach, which after ten years of him, I’m starting to warm up to the idea.