Good evening, everybody.

I'm Seth Meyers.

This is Late Night.

We hope you're doing well.

And now, if you don't mind, we're gonna get to the news.

A photograph has gained attention online of President Trump on stage at his rally last week in Nebraska, opening his jacket and

revealing that it was a Joseph A. Bank suit.

Uh-oh, guys. I don't think we're gonna get those $5,000 checks.

That's right. Trump was wearing a Joseph A. Bank suit.

You know everything's too expensive when billionaires start shopping at Joseph A. Bank.

That's not a suit for a rally, that's a suit for your first semi-formal.

Dur- That's a good one there. That's-

During an Oval Office event today, President Trump said that he has a call set up with Russian President Vladimir Putin for his birthday.

But what do you get for a man who already has his own American president?

President Trump announced today that every eligible US child has been automatically enrolled in a so-called Trump account, and added, quote, "These beautiful young children are extremely rich."

Rich? What can you get for $1,000 these days besides 10 of Trump's suits?

During his rally on Monday in Nebraska, President Trump suggested that Iran might target Los Angeles and San Diego.

All right, I know you hate liberal Hollywood, but what did San Diego ever do to you?

That's home to RFK Jr.'s favorite restaurant.

Yeah. Right. I, I like it when they're endangered.

During the same rally, President Trump had White House special assistant Natalie Harp come on stage to take a signed executive order,

and said, "She reminds me of The Price is Right."

All right. Maybe the midterms isn't the best time to remind people of the game show where you guess the price of groceries.

President Trimp also... President Trimp? I think it's Trimp.

President Trump also criticized Fox News for airing an interview with Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and said, quote, "They never have any of us on television."

Well, of course they don't. They're trying to make you look good.

When asked on Monday what the US will do about the pneumonic plague in Russia, President Trump said that his administration just heard about it, and is, quote, "Looking at it very strongly."

Which is my favorite stupid thing he says.

What does that mean, looking at it strongly? Just say you're looking at it.

The only person in your administration looking at things strongly is Kash Patel.

He looked, he looked a little too strongly.

He pulled an eye hamstring. An eye hammy.

Krispy Kreme this week announced a new Looney Tunes-inspired Bugs Bunny donut that is filled with chocolate dulce cream and topped with chocolate drizzles, bat sprinkles, and a Bugs Bunny vampire sugar piece.

And after you eat it, you'll be saying, "What's up?" to your doc.

The convenience store chain Wawa has begun testing grab-and-go sushi at some of its locations in Pennsylvania.

And there's no better time to try sushi than when it's being tested.

And finally, an apple pie tree statue that was part of McDonald's McDonaldland and could be found in restaurants was recently listed on Facebook Marketplace for $10,000.

So looks like the price of the ballroom just went up again.

And that was the monologue, everybody.

We got a great show for you tonight.

You know him from Argo, Good Will Hunting, and Air. He directed, co-wrote, and produces, stars in Animals, which is in select theaters and on Netflix October 9th.

My friend Ben Affleck is here, everybody. Ben's here.

He's a fantastic musician. He is the former front man of iconic rock band Talking Heads, and his new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, is available now.

David Byrne is back on the show, everybody.

But before we get to all that, the president caused a slight kerfuffle by suggesting that Iran could take out Los Angeles and San Diego.

Meanwhile, his allies are plotting ways to undermine the midterms, and Trump himself is refusing to rule out using the Insurrection Act.

For more on this, it's time for A Closer Look.

Trump loves to brag about how powerful he is, even when he's doing something inconsequential, like announcing changes to federal rules on fishing.

I could've banned fishing.

The, I'll tell you what, the power of this office is crazy.

I could've banned fishing.

I think I'm gonna do that, just to, maybe just a quick order, just for a day or two.

You know, I do bet he has pretended there was a fishing ban.

You know, probably 40 years ago when young Don Jr. was standing in his doorway with a rod.

"Papa, can we go fishing today?"

"Were that we could, DJ, but I'm afraid there's been a ban."

"Another ban, Papa?"

"I'm afraid so, dear boy. Also, it's now punishable by death for fathers to attend Little League games."

"We can't get to break, you and I."

Trump relishes how much power he thinks he has,

and it's true that the presidency has grown in power over the years.

It wasn't always like this.

In fact, after Richard Nixon resigned, Congress made an effort to rein in the presidency.

After Watergate, there was an effort to reform the presidency and to put some constraints on it.

A lot of ethics laws were passed.

Um, independent agencies were safeguarded.

The whole effort was to fight corruption and to fight tyranny,

to make sure that a president didn't become a tyrant.

Oh, they wanted to fight corruption and tyranny? Well, sounds like they nailed it.

I mean, in fairness, who could have possibly predicted the level of corruption we've seen under Trump?

Imagine if, while they were writing anti-corruption laws, someone said,

"Hey guys, I think we should maybe just, I don't know, add in a clause

that says something like a president can't put his name on a meme coin,

and he can't accept a luxury jet from Qatar,

and he can't do a crypto deal with the UAE,

and he can't take donations for a ballroom and demolish the East Wing

and put his name on the Kennedy Center,

and start a trade war with Canada or a real war with Iran,

or put his own personal attorney in charge of the Justice Department,

or let Elon Musk wreak havoc on federal programs or use taxpayer monies for campaign ads,

and he can't sell his own personal brand of sneakers, Bibles, cologne, and trading cards.

And just in case this comes up somehow, he can't ban

fishing." If somebody said that, everyone else in the room would've been like, "Uh, Jeffy, you're being a drama queen."

So Congress tried to limit the power of the presidency, but over the next few decades, conservatives fought to roll back those restrictions, culminating in the MAGA Supreme Court basically letting Trump do whatever he wants.

The presidential immunity decision was obviously the Supreme Court showing a broad embrace of executive authority, and that was a case where the Court said, uh, for lack of a better way of describing it, we need to kind of bubble wrap the president.

And if there's ever been a president who needs to be bubble wrapped, it's Donald Trump, or better yet, they could just have him travel by

Zorb. We're doing amazing things with the ballroom.

Somebody roll me over so I can show the fake news the ballroom.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they actually put Trump in bubble wrap.

I mean, we've already seen him come close to wiping out on the stairs.

And sure, it wasn't as bad as the time Joe Biden tripped, but at least Biden saved it by saluting when he got to the top.

Trump's move is to just pretend it never happened.

In fact, at a rally a few days ago, he actually bragged, he bragged about how good he is at walking.

Don't forget, when Biden left the stage, he spake, spoke very shortly, like two minutes, one minute, as quickly as possible. Could never find the stairs.

I don't have that problem.

You know these things, do you know how many stairs they have?

Look, I got, I can go ramp. I can go stair. I can go another stair.

Another stair in the back, I have a stair here. He could never find a stair.

I mean, it's true Biden's rallies were shorter than Trump's, but one of the reasons is he never did a tight five on where the stairs were.

He's so proud of his ability to point at things and name them.

It's official, we've elected President Brick from Anchorman.

I love carpet. I love desk. I love lamp. We all love lamp, don't we, folks?

It's better than sun because you can look at it. If you look at lamp- ... no one makes fun of you, but if you look at sun, everyone says, "No, Mr.

President, don't look at sun. You'll burn your

eye." But I and I are

good. That's why I'm so fine at reading off

teleprompter. I never make mistake with teleprompter because word too

long. Saudi Arabia and Russia will re- be- do-

Ah. The point is Trump thinks his power is virtually unlimited, and polls have shown people hate

that. A majority of voters say Trump is dangerous and corrupt, and yet Trump is doubling

down. In an interview published last week, Time Magazine asked him, "Would you rule out declaring a state of emergency in the lead up to the midterms unless there's widespread violence in the streets?"

To which Trump responded, "I don't rule anything out or in. We'll

see. You mean the Insurrection Act? No, I've never used it. I could use it.

A lot of people think I should use it sometimes." I mean, that's a classic Trump

answer. He goes from, "I've never done it," to, "I could do it," to, "A lot of people think I should do it," in matter of seconds.

I mean, imagine talking like that in any other situation. If your spouse asks you, "Are you having an affair?" And you say, "Never.

I could."

"Many people say I should."

You can guarantee they're about to go have one.

Also, I know it's hard to cover the president, but, like, don't ask him questions like that.

You're just gonna give him ideas.

It's like, "Hey, uh, Mr. President, you ever thought about letting out the pandas at the National Zoo?"

Just, like, leaving the cages open and seeing what happens?

Well, I haven't, but, uh, I could.

But the one part of Trump's answer that's true is that there are people around him urging him to take control of elections before the midterms.

A slew of outside advisors to President Trump are urging him to take control of federal elections this November.

A key player in the scheme, according to The Atlantic, is an attorney named Peter Ticktin.

Ticktin told The Atlantic magazine that Trump could decide to declare martial law on or around election day.

Ticktin is also the attorney for convicted election denier Tina Peters.

She met with President Trump at the White House.

This is what Peters said about that meeting.

There is a plan.

Uh, yesterday, when I was with the president, he basically said f- to his lead counsel, um, to, to, to, to do what I was asking.

As a general rule, you never wanna hear a bunch of crazy people say the word, "There's a plan."

You know, if you're on the subway and someone comes up to you and says, "Hey, good news, there's a plan"

That's when you put your earbuds in and you move to the other end of the car.

I've known a lot of crazy people in my life, and the last thing you want them to do is plan something.

I mean, that's like 50% of Seinfeld episodes. Like, Kramer bursts into Jerry's apartment and says, "I got a plan, Jerry."

And then Jerry says, "So what's the plan?" And Kramer says, "No more forks, Jerry. From now on, I'm eating everything with my hands."

Then George decides to eat with his hands at work, but he grosses out his boss and he gets fired, and he's like, "I got fired, Jerry."

And Jerry's like, "Why?" And he's like, "I went no forks." And then Jerry says, "You went no forks, and now you forked yourself."

Now, who knows? Who knows? Who knows if Trump will actually follow through with this plan, and even if he does, it's not a foregone conclusion that he'll succeed.

But at a speech on Tuesday, he gave an ominous shout-out to one of his aides,

a guy named Russ Vought, who Trump himself has called Darth Vader.

Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought, who's fantastic.

He's on the job.

We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks. Right, Russ?

Well, if your big surprise is to try to steal the election, I'll bet Russ wasn't too psyched about the call-out.

Trump's like a bank robber who freaks out and immediately starts calling the other robbers out by their real names.

"Oh, man, he pressed the alarm.

What do we do, Kevin Johnson?"

"Kevin Johnson of Jamaica, Queens, middle initial Q, what do we do?"

Now, again, who the hell knows what this guy's talking about?

He could be describing an illegal scheme to seize voting machines and declare martial law,

or he could be teasing another dumb renovation that he's really excited about.

"We're adding two giant disco balls to the base of the Washington Monument."

Oh, real quick, can we zoom in on the background of that picture?

Oh, he did it.

He did it.

Those reporters asked him, and he got the idea, and he did it.

Trump is surrounded by people who tell him he can do whatever he wants,

and he also thinks he's all-knowing, as he explained at a rally in Ohio.

I know more about inflation, I know more about everything than anybody in this room, anybody anywhere in the world.

Well, there's a woman sitting right over there that, she's a housewife, but she's very good. She's got a natural instinct for business.

She perhaps knows more than I do, but I actually don't think so.

For someone who knows more about anything than anyone in the world, it sure seems like you forgot that woman's name.

"I'm all powerful and all-knowing. If you don't believe me, just ask woman over there."

"Housewife, she good. She know where stair is." "She no look at sun."

Also, no one believes that you know more about everything than anybody anywhere in the world.

Until recently, you didn't even know the word dumb ended with the letter B.

Democrats, dumb. You take the, the B out, most people don't know that dumb has a B, okay?

All you do is take the E and you replace it with a U, and nobody knows that there's a B.

Nobody knows there's a B in dumb.

They think it's D-U-M. The word dumb doesn't...

Think of this, most people don't know, dumb.

They all think that dumb doesn't have a B.

This is the iron law of Trump. It's always been true.

Whenever he says most people don't know something, it means he didn't know something.

"Dumb is spelled with B. I'm so shocked, my hands are numb. What?"

"Another one?"

So we have a president who's enamored with his own power and thinks he knows all, which is kind of a bad combination,

especially since half the time we have no idea what the hell he's talking about,

as he illustrated on Monday with an offhand comment in which he tried to argue that high gas prices caused by the war in

Iran were a small price to pay to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

But as usual, he was incoherent. And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial.

It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.

They can take out a city. Yeah. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles.

Let them take out San Diego.

That's, this is a very small price to pay.

I think what Trump was trying to say is that Iran had a nuclear weapon,

they could take out Los Angeles or San Diego,

which is why the war and the high prices caused by the war are a small price to pay in comparison.

But real quick, why is it on us to translate the president's words into plain English?

Thank God there wasn't a sign language interpreter up there.

They would've signed the words, "I quit."

He's a singularly powerful person in a singular powerful office, so it's bad that he speaks in mangled, incoherent half-sentences that no one can understand, and works out premises on the fly like a comedian at open mic night.

Like, "All right, let's see, uh, let's see, what else? All right, oh, yeah, hey, if Iran bombed anywhere, I'd love it to be San Diego SeaWorld."

"Just so we can see how high a nuke would make Shamu jump."

"Okay, not that."

Even if it's true that Trump was saying Iran shouldn't be able to nuke LA and San Diego, it's bad that people can't understand what the hell the president is saying on a daily basis.

And this has happened many times

before. Like when a reporter asked Trump if he would attend his son Don Jr.'s wedding.

And again, he gave an answer that confused a lot of people.

Are you attending your son's wedding this weekend, by the way?

Uh, he'd like me to go, but it's gonna be just a small little private affair, and I'm gonna try and make it.

I'm, I'm in the midst. I said, "You know, this is not good timing for me."

But he's, uh, got a very, uh, person who I've known for a long time. And hopefully they're gonna have a great marriage.

Now- Now, many people thought he was describing his own son as a person I've known for a long time.

Because he speaks in slurred, mangled, broken English like he just drank a wine cooler mixed with NyQuil.

He was actually trying to say his son was marrying a person he's known for a long time,

and the confusion overshadowed the much funnier aspect of this story, which was Trump saying he's too busy to go to his own son's wedding.

Trump didn't even say, "I'd like to go," he said, "He'd like me to go,"

which is hilarious.

You gonna go to your son's wedding?

"Oh, yeah, he'd love that."

He can't even pretend to be bummed about it.

He's like a guy who gets an invite to a destination wedding,

and instead of making up an excuse, just writes back, "Too far."

If the president cannot speak in clear, coherent sentences that everyone can understand, that's bad, especially

when he's enamored with his own power and surrounded by people who tell him he can do whatever he wants, which is why voters are furious.

They think Trump is dangerous, corrupt, and- Dumb

This has been A Closer Look.