Seth Meyers crushes #SaysWho conservatives: Fox News spent years teaching GOP to question reality

Donald Trump has a history of going on tirades and then managing to tone it down just long enough for reporters to wonder if he's finally becoming a respectable candidate. "Late Night" host Seth Meyers has a rude awakening for them: Trump is never going to pivot.

“The 2016 campaign has settled into something of a pattern: Donald Trump spends weeks saying inflammatory things that drive his poll numbers down, then for a few days he acts relatively normal, and the media thinks he’s ready to get serious,” said Meyers. “Well, it’s happening again — even as Trump surrounds himself with people who feed his worst instincts.”

It's happening yet again. Trump tried to Etch-a-Sketch away the last year of absurd claims and insults with what Meyers called a "hollow" apology, saying, "It's hard to apologize when the crowd gives you a five-second applause break for admitting you say the wrong thing."

"That's how low the bar is for Trump right now," Meyers continued. "Republicans are complimenting him for being 'mature.' They talk about their nominee the way people talk about a 5-year-old wearing a suit at a wedding." It wasn't just the GOP either, it was the media too. And "the Trump 'pivot' the media is hungry for may never actually happen."

The "cotton candy-haired Kremlin apologist" is making an effort to reinvent himself and his campaign with new leaders in the team like Breitbart's Steve Bannon, who released Ukraine profiteer Paul Manafort from his position. It's Trump's new "no holds barred" campaign team. "No holds barred?" Meyers asked. "I'm sorry, was Trump barring any holds before this?"

“So, Trump got rid of his old campaign chairman who was trying to get him to tone down his rhetoric and hired people who want him to be even more controversial," Meyers said. "Trump’s like an alcoholic who fires his doctor and starts getting medical advice from his bartender."

The new strategy and a new inner circle does make a little bit of sense, Meyers explained. “Trump is surrounding himself with the very people who created the right-wing media bubble — a bubble built on paranoia, conspiracy theories, and white identity politics which allowed Trump to thrive in the first place.”

He launched into an attack on Bannon for being nothing more than a right-wing conspiracy theorist and propaganda artist.

“Let’s first take Bannon, whose website Breitbart News has run headlines, among other things, accusing President Obama of shedding ‘phony fascist tears’ and calling a conservative Trump critic a ‘renegade Jew,’” Meyers began. “And then there was this classic Breitbart headline: ‘Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy,’ and if anyone should be the judge of who’s unattractive and crazy, it’s pin-up model Steve Bannon. He looks like Jabba the Hutt’s deadbeat son.”

We can't forget to mention Fox News alleged sexual harasser Roger Ailes. “Then there’s former Fox News chairman and current Jabba the Hutt Roger Ailes, who was forced out after an alleged pattern of sexual harassment and is reportedly advising Trump,” said Meyers. “Ailes essentially shaped the modern conservative movement, so it’s no surprise that Trump is now using many of Ailes’s tactics.” Plus, if it all goes south, Ailes can help Trump launch TrumpTV.

The tactics Bannon, Ailes and Trump want to use ignore the polls that explain why he's trailing Clinton. When Trump's own sketchy attorney Michael Cohen appeared on CNN, the host cited the numbers showing Trump was down and Cohen's only response was, "Says who?"

“'Says who?' isn’t just a dumb Trump supporter’s response to a few polls," Meyers explained. "It’s the right’s reaction to everything—from climate change to unemployment numbers to healthcare. 'Says who?' is the product of decades of work by Ailes and others to dismiss facts that don’t align with their worldview."

"And now, with members of the alt-right conservative media advising Trump, they’ve latched on to yet another conspiracy theory: this time questioning Hillary Clinton’s physical health, despite zero evidence and repeated assurances from her doctor that she’s fit to serve as president," he slammed.

They say this despite Clinton opening the hell out of a jar of pickles, enduring a grueling interrogation from Congress as well as pages of doctor reports pronouncing her in excellent health. Meyers played a clip of a Trump interview in which he said of Clinton, “She’ll do an event, she’ll make a short speech off a teleprompter, and then she goes home and goes to sleep. I’ll tell you, she is—she is dangerous."

“That’s right: Hillary Clinton sleeps at night, and she sleeps great,” Meyers said, shaking his head. “You know why? Because she’s seen the polls. All of them. Also, it’s not dangerous to sleep! Dangerous is staying up until 4 a.m. and hate-tweeting Morning Joe.”

Watch the full video of the epic takedown below: