Late-Night Hosts Target Trump's New 'Gold Card' Residency Plan

Television's prominent entertainers used the evening ridiculing former President Donald Trump's just launched immigration program, labeled the "gold card," portraying it as a blatant pay-to-play arrangement for the rich.

Stephen Colbert's Pointed Take

Kicking off his show, Stephen Colbert offered a satirical Christmas tune directed at the president. "He's compiling a list, checking it twice, before giving that list to the officials at ICE," he sang. "The President ... ruins all he handles."

Colbert's target was the new plan which permits foreign nationals to acquire U.S. legal status for an investment of a million dollars, or "premium" version for $5 million. An official website guarantees processing "in record time."

"A quick message here to rich applicants: prior to you fork over the cash, have you considered Canada?" Colbert quipped.

He noted that the program is also intended to "extract cash" from businesses wishing to hire foreign workers, requiring significant fees. "That is a lot of fees, but if you sign up, you also get a complimentary stay at a property of your selection – if it's the a specific Marriott," he continued.

"The best vetting the government has ever done," remarked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, "that $15,000 vetting to make sure these people absolutely qualify to be in America."

"That's important, you have to prove you're qualified to be an American," Colbert deadpanned. "Question one: how many hamburgers would you eat for a free T-shirt?"

Jimmy Kimmel's Scathing Critique

On his late-night program, Jimmy Kimmel dubbed the visa program the "Get Into America Express Card."

"Here's a card that will allow affluent overseas citizens to live here," he said. "For a million dollars, you get official resident status, you get a pathway to citizenship, and a president's pardon for one major crime of your choice."

"It might be time to revise that message on the Statue of Liberty – to hell with your huddled masses. Give us a million bucks, you're in!" he remarked.

Kimmel lampooned the brevity of the form, saying it is "harder to start a Wordle account." He said that Trump "thinks citizenship is something you can sell, like a timeshare."

"Exactly, the finest people are the rich people," Kimmel joked. "It's what Jesus always said! Read it in the Bible. He says it's simpler for a camel to go through the eye of a needle provided that you give the needle a million dollars."

Seth Meyers discussing Affordability Concerns

On another network, Seth Meyers focused on Trump's slipping poll numbers amid economic concerns. "The public gave Donald Trump a second term because they were mad about the economy," he noted.

Recently, in a bid to tackle affordability, Trump held a briefing in front of a display of food items, and behaved peculiarly to boxes of cereal.

"What a nice job, I think I'm going to take some of them back to my cottage and have a lot of fun," Trump remarked. "Like the Cheerios, I haven't seen Cheerios in a while."

"He's so extremely weird," Meyers reacted. "What do you mean, you're going to take them home to your cottage to have a lot of fun with them? What are you gonna do with those Cheerios?"

Meyers finished by criticizing right-leaning news coverage of Trump's economic performance. "Maybe rather than voicing concerns, you should give him a sparkling trophy similar to what FIFA did," he joked.