George Fouracres | with Obama Mocks Trump's Cheesecake Factory Meltdown; Talarico & El-Sayed Spark MAGA Panic: A Closer Look

0:03Instacart has released a list of the most popular Halloween candy by state, like Skittles in Texas, Snickers in Iowa, and Baked Zini in New Jersey.

0:18From 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, please enjoy this podcast edition of Late Night with Seth Meyers. On today's show, Seth chats with Saturday Night Live UK cast member George Fouracres. But first, a closer look.

0:36Barack Obama fired back at Republicans who freaked out about his Cheesecake Factory joke. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and the GOP are stooping to disgusting new lows in their attacks on Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. For more on this, it's time for a closer look.

0:55Trump and his rich MAGA country club buddies He's loved cosplaying as regular, everyday folks. We all remember when Trump pretended to work at McDonald's in 2024. My first day at McDonald's. I'm looking for a job. That's a great setup, huh? Never even touch it, huh? Exactly. I always wonder, wow, that's pretty good. Never touches the human hand. Nice and clean. Of course, my hands are nice and clean. Oh, that's your customer out there. It does. Wow, that's pretty good. Okay, let's say. I've always wanted to work at McDonald's, but I never did. I love McDonald's. I love jobs. I like to see good jobs.

1:33What's your favorite thing to order at McDonald's? I like it all. I love McDonald's. I like every ounce of it, everything. Just a regular blue-collar guy starting to shift the way they all do by having someone else tie his apron on. Is this supposed to make you look like you're in touch with the working class? You look like a 19th-century dowager having her girdle tightened. Tighter, tighter, Abigail. The Count will be here tonight and his wife just died of typhus. This is my chance. Trump is not the only rich guy who likes to pretend he's an average working Joe. His Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, who went to Yale, ran a Wall Street hedge fund and is worth roughly$600 million, once claimed he understood the plight of soybean farmers hurt by Trump's trade war because he was one of them.

2:22China has been boycotting American soybeans and American farmers have really suffered. Do you see a real light at the end of the tunnel there? They may allow soybeans again. Well, Martha, in case you don't know it, I'm actually a soybean farmer. So I have felt this pain, too. Now, if you're wondering what the hell he's talking about, Besson's government financial disclosures show that he owns soybean and corn farmland in North Dakota. On that disclosure, Besson said...

2:58Just because you own a farm that you rent out to farmers doesn't make you a farmer. You're a landlord. My landlord owns my apartment. But that doesn't mean he gets to call himself the host of Late Night. And he's definitely tried. One day, I came in here, and all the signs said, Late Night with Anatoly Yevgenovich Grigoryevich.

3:24Time to take a closer look at why rent always leads. But multimillionaire hedge fund manager Scott Besson really thinks we're buying the bull that he's in everyman after Barack Obama dissed Trump's White House by saying it looked like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. Besson took issue with the comparison to a violent, repressive dictator. Oh, I'm sorry. He took issue with the comparison to Cheesecake Factory. and decided to go to one himself. Hi, Mr. Secretary. It's an interesting lunch choice today. What did you order at the Cheesecake Factory? I have what I always had, the French dip cheeseburger.

4:02What you always have? It's lame enough that you went there for this stupid stunt, but don't pretend you're there all the time. You're not the norm of the Cheesecake Factory. When you walked in, nobody yelled, Scott! They probably said, Oh, that looks like the landlord. Obama got wind of the stunt and had some fun at Bacent's expense during a rally in Georgia on Wednesday. The White House even called the Secretary of the Treasury. They told him he should hold a press conference in front of the Cheesecake Factory. I will admit it's funny to call it a press conference at the Cheesecake Factory. We said it on Monday, we'll say it again.

4:44Stand-up comedy, Obama is back.

4:50He's working out material for his next special, Hussein and the Membrane. They held a press conference at the Cheesecake Factory. What's next, a summit with Vladimir Putin at the Olive Garden? You guys know it's not an actual factory, right? They don't make the cheesecakes on an assembly line. These mother probably think Chuck E. Cheese is real. Trump's going to make him come To his next meeting With Elon Musk Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? A giant Animatronic rat Meeting With Chuck E. Cheese What else? What else? All jokes aside We do have some sad news to report Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be at that press conference but missed it because he showed up at the Cheesecake Factory Total Landscape.

5:522020 callback! 2020 callback! I know, I know. We shouldn't make fun of Rudy now that he's dead. He's not? Oh, good for him. Rock and roll, dude. Where were we? Ah, yes. The right-wing fan fiction that Trump is a true man of the people, not because of any policies he's passed, but because he likes to dress up in costumes. This is the difference between out-of-touch Obama and President Trump. We know President Trump is a billionaire. We know him as this. But he'll still go to a McDonald's drive-thru. He'll go sit in a garbage truck. The man can just connect with working-class folks. Yes, he can connect with working-class folks by sitting in a garbage truck.

6:36Ask anyone in sanitation, and they'll tell you the hardest part of the job is sitting in the truck. He's not a garbage man He's a five-year-old at the state fair It's all such obvious bull Same goes for Ivy Leaguer J.D. Vance Who worked at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm Before he got into politics But likes to pretend he's just one of the folks By claiming he can't read a map And I also remember going to a gas station And waiting in line for hours For gasoline that of course had shot up in price Because of a region of the world made up of countries whose name I couldn't even pronounce. Aw, shucks.

7:16Gee whiz. I ain't know nothing about no Kuwait or Qatar. I'm just a simple folk like you. I get up in the morning and put my liner on one eye at a time. No one's buying your fake folksy bull. Not even MAGA. We all know you're an Ivy Leaguer who lived in San Francisco and worked for Peter Thiel. You can pronounce the names. Now, Trump, on the other hand, if Trump said he couldn't pronounce the names, I would believe that. Saudi Arabia and Russia will be... We'll never know what that third country was. Unless there's a new one on the map called the People's Republic of Winavala. Publicities don't want you to think about the fact that while everything in your life has gotten more expensive, gas, housing, health care, food, Trump has made$2 billion.

8:02Or that corporate profits are soaring. Or that Elon Musk's wealth increased by 52 % during Trump's first year back in office. So instead, they're telling you that Texas Senate candidate, James Tallarico, isn't a real American because he secretly dislikes meat? Notice the way all of a sudden he's eating meat. He doesn't eat meat. He's a vegan. And vegans, you know what a vegan is. Vegans don't do well in Texas, okay? So now he goes to a barbecue, he eats meat. You know what he does after he eats? He says, excuse me, just for... He goes behind the tent and he throws up. He throws up. He gets rid of the meat.

8:37He doesn't want meat. You ever see him go to a barbecue and he's trying to show? I love the meat. Ah. I love it. Look. Whoa, C-SPAN. C-SPAN, next time you show that clip, throw an NC-17 rating on there. Trump's just gone full goblin now. In fact, this is fun. You can take that audio and pair it with your animatronic skeleton for Halloween and scare all the trick-or-treaters off your porch. I love the meat. But don't worry. Trump's wife Melania explained to him that it's actually vegan. Or at least, I think it was. Melania? He's a vegan. You know, my wife told me, sir, do me a favor. You have to do me just a little bit of a favor.

9:26It's not vegan, it's vegan. I don't know about that stuff. I'm not into it. And he said, it's vegan. I'm sorry, your wife calls you sir?

9:39Was it Milani or was it Marcy? I think what happened here is Trump just getting his bullsh** imaginary stories mixed up He forgot he was telling a fake story about his wife and started telling a fake story about one of the big strong men that come up to him and thank him for being such a great president A wife came up to me, big wife, strong wife Tears pouring from her ice-cold shark eyes down onto a giant purple lampshade, which she then picked up and wore as a hat. And she said to me, she said, Sir, wake up. This is a dream. I would never talk to you in real life. And I said, It's so true. It's so true.

10:16But that somehow, that somehow is not the most bizarre insult they've thrown at Tallarico. Ted Cruz jumped in with a line of attack that is not very convincing coming from him. If you were to sit down and make a list of the top 1 ,000 adjectives to describe James Tallarico. Masculine would not be one of them. I'm sorry, Ted Cruz, do you think you're masculine just because you grew 65 % of a beard? And look, I'm not pretending I'm some jack super masculine guy either, but I'm not out here questioning other guys' masculinity. If I did, I would have started with this guy. He's such a fine man, John Hughes, that is.

10:58as the senator, so I'm studying him. And I made the mistake of saying that I started off by studying his ass. I just wanted to say... All the super masculine guys I know sit around drinking beers, fixing cars, and groping invisible asses. By the way, judging from Trump's hand movements, that's one round ass. You want us to believe a sitting senator has an ass like this? You look like you're carrying two watermelons home from the supermarket. But as gross as the attacks on Tallargaard, they somehow pale in comparison to the truly revolting attacks the GOP has been leveling at Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who was born and raised in Michigan.

11:40They've been trafficking in some truly vile gutter racism. His name is actually Abdullah... It's Abdullah... Mohammed El-Sayed. So his middle name is Mohammed. So I was right. Almost. Oh, by the way, how about that guy? He's a jihadist. His family, they don't just flirt with terrorism. They actually help fund Osama bin Laden. AIPAC wouldn't be, they wouldn't come here if Dr. El-Sayed didn't sleep in a bin Laden church. If Abdul El-Sayed becomes the senator for Michigan, and if I'm correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.

12:28Spoiler alert, he's not correct. In fact, if you want to know where Ted got that from, he's pulling it directly from... His ass. It's disgusting. How nakedly racist this is. By the way, Ted, Americans actually did die in the winter storms that happened in your state while you were strolling through the airport with your rolling suitcase looking for a Cinnabon on your way to Cancun. And Americans did die when Trump foamed in a riot at the Capitol. Trump is even doubling down on his racist attacks toward El-Sayed with a dumb new nickname for the GOP candidate in Michigan, Mike Rogers. Mike Rogers is apple pie.

12:59He's apple pie. He's all apple pie. He's apple pie. I call him apple pie. He's like perfect, this guy. You call him apple pie? I know you're racist, but are you also maybe just hungry? Trump's probably thinking of what he's going to order on McDonald's on his way home. I call him Senator Apple Pie. He comes from a humble Irish family in the McFlurries. Who knows what'll happen on Election Day, but it seems like these tactics are backfiring. Trump and Vance are polling at all-time lows. Red states like Kansas and South Carolina are competitive, and even GOP voters are unhappy. There's nothing to celebrate.

13:33They can't say, I love the inflation, or I love high gas prices, or I love the war, so all they have left is... I love the meat! This has been A Closer Look.

13:54I guess a very talented actor and comedian From the cast of Saturday Night Live UK Which is streaming on Peacock in the US Please welcome to the show George Fouracres everybody

14:10Please please no take the chair Hello George it's so good to see you again Hello Seth it's good to be here Congratulations!

14:20So, it's officially a success. SNL UK, you had a great first season. You quickly got picked up for season two. You're in the middle of that now. And I'm going to tell you something. This will not surprise you. I'm sure you heard it as well. Every British person who was on this show, in the lead-up, I would tell that they were doing it SNL UK, and every one of them to a person said, oh, that won't work. Were you hearing that as well before the show started? Yeah, we got wind of that. It did come It came to us Whispered But like That is just sort of who we are As a nation We're like We're a pessimistic lot Yeah It's very cold there And there's a lot of rain You've seen our food I don't know You can't blame anyone But it was very sweet because then from the jump, people who had maybe thought it was a bad idea.

15:22These are reviews. I'm just going to read you some just some word choices that that speak to how surprised people were. The Telegraph said it was shockingly competent. Metro said it was shockingly good. Everybody was shocked. The Guardian said it didn't fail and it could have been a lot worse. By the way, these are raves And then Chortle This is my favorite, whisper it But I think they might just have nailed it So I like that They think you nailed it, but they also don't think It should be said that loudly They don't want us to hear that part Don't tell them So you guys must know that it's succeeding Now do you also, is the British Outlook on that to then quickly Remind you not to get too high on the success Of it?

16:10Yeah, definitely Like, that is our general Void, is like, well, alright But just, you know Don't, yeah You know, like It is like the highest That is like the highest possible compliment You can get from A British person If they say, we wanted To hate you But we have decided To set aside our Our desire To destroy you and instead not outwardly despise him. Thank you, Father.

16:58Speaking of fathers, was Lorne at your audition? I mean, I know Lorne was obviously involved in this casting search. What was your first interaction with him? He was. So we did, you guys have presumably all seen the SNL auditions that you have here, where you do them, I guess, here. Yeah, you do them in their studio. And you perform it to the void. There's no one sat in the audience, so you're just being like, and there's no one reacting at all. So we had that, but in a television studio in London. and we had the British team there, the team from SNL UK, but we also had the New York team were like beamed in at the same time and Lorne was their Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars.

17:48It's just sort of like... It's sort of head. And you're like... So you saw him on a screen? Only vaguely and just faintly. Because that's scary. I mean, I knew he was there, but he was in the shadows like him on a screen is scary yeah but it was only a glimpse yeah it's like a horror film like he was just flicking his camera on and off yeah how familiar were you with snl us i mean obviously yeah i know the uk has this like very rich sketch comedy tradition but i'm always surprised how it gets over there i was honestly uh i was kind of more into snl the US SNL than I was our own sketch comedy tradition.

18:34I was like, sorry, England. But I was a fan. I was an active fan of the show because I was like, I wish we had that. And I had my first familiarity, this is why it was weird, when you came over with Tina and my first memory of the show was when I was at school when it was the 2008 US election and Tina playing Sarah Palin. Yeah. And I was like, yeah.

19:10So, like, from there, I kind of became a fan of the... Because I'm a bit of a politics nerd and I became, like, a fan of the political side of the show and then my interest in it kind of evolved from there and then I was really into it again in 2016 with the 2016 election for obvious reasons. And then, yeah, after that I was kind of like, oh, I wish we had something like that. And it was a sort of weird sort of secret pipe dream that I knew could never come true because I was like, I wish I could be on Saturday Night Live. But it doesn't exist here. So I never can and therefore I can never fail.

19:52Again, very British thing. And then it happened, and it happened to me. You know, obviously we know the show meant something to you. It must have been so excited when you got hired. And we have a photo. This is taken right after you found out you got hired. And based on everything we just heard about you and how much this meant to you, I guess I expected something different. Thank you.

20:25I look at this photo and I'm like, oh, thank God you got the job. I promise there's context for this. So, like, this happened. This was two days after I'd just finished a run of a play. I was playing Falstaff in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. Hence, I've got this kind of beard and mad hair. But it was literally, like, two days later, so I was still absolutely exhausted. And I'm eating the reheated Chinese food from the previous day because I didn't have enough energy to cook yet. And I'm wearing my cleaning clothes because I was really excited that day because I was about to pick up a cordless vacuum cleaner.

21:17And I was so excited about this cordless vacuum cleaner. I was like, I cannot wait for this. Because we've been lugging around this really heavy one with a pet extension together. We've got a long-haired cat, so it gets everywhere. I was like, oh, I cannot wait. It's cordless. It's got a light on the front when you push it under the sofa. This is incredible promo for the backing. I won't mention the brand. But then I got this call that was like, oh, well, you're going to be on Saturday Night Live. and I was like, I don't really fully remember it, but apparently my reaction was that I went, oh, that's all been sorted then now, has it?

21:59I was like, all right, see you later. I thought somebody had to run and get a camera quick, but now I think you maybe were like this for an hour. They took this picture to send it to a doctor.

22:17You mentioned Getting drawn into the political impression side of SNL Watching Tina Dupalyn You have had a couple of runs of things You were Keir Starmer You're Prime Minister Keir Starmer And now you're the new Andy Burnham You're the PM And I'm wondering Obviously when people play him here We have a president who Let's be known how he feels about impressions People have always addressed it Especially because of SNL's sort of cultural footprint Have either of the PMs mentioned your impression of them? No. The first one, Sir Keir Starmer, released multiple, sort of too many, sort of statements from Downing Street.

23:02It looked like this very teacherly, sort of like, no, the Prime Minister has not seen the sketches. I was like, honey, if you have to keep saying it. And no, no word yet from Andy Burnham. It's mad that we've only got through two of them. Like, we tend to have, like, a new prime minister every, like, six weeks in Britain. Like, the fact that we've kept it to just two in the space of... Well, I think the fact that there's an SNL now, obviously, they're incentivized to hold on to the job. Exactly, yeah, yeah. It was really kind of them as well to kind of go one to leave just before season two. Yeah.

23:39So we had a kind of, like, into series. They were like, whoa, well, who's it going to be? Thanks guys I'm also delighted by How you curse on SNL UK This was a conversation I remember I went over there and let me just tell I remember I also Didn't know if this was going to work and I went over And I got to sit down with you guys and the writers And I came back and I told everybody like oh this is going to be a blast You guys I could tell right away You guys were going to You had the skills to make this work With that said there were conversations about whether or not you can swear on an SNL? You guys obviously felt it was very important as a SNL UK to curse.

24:17Yeah, we are we are a sweary people. We we swear all the time. Like, you know, if you're not swearing in Britain, people think either you're very religious or just a big baby. Like we all swear all the time. We swear at work. We swear at church. No, we don't. We always swear. So when it was kind of explained to us that it's going to be a late night show, a late night comedy show, but you can't swear, we were like, no one's going to believe us. You have to let us curse. It's kind of like breathing to us. I think even the royal family I swear, quite a lot. I'm glad they made the decision to let you guys have it.

25:11Yeah, people would have been deeply suspicious if we hadn't been chucking in a few F's and Jeff's. You also, you mentioned playing Falstaff. You've performed at the Globe Theatre. You have quite a history doing Shakespeare. Yeah, that was my thing before this. In fact, when I was auditioning for it, I was at the time I was doing Full Staff at the Globe and I would have to go to my auditions in the middle of while we were doing the show so I'd have to get on a motorbike dressed as an obese medieval knight and just like go off to do the audition and yeah I'd been at the Globe that was my seventh show there So I've been there for a long time before that Five or six years, I think I would imagine when you tell everybody at the Globe You're off to do SNL UK It does sound like a lie Yes, yeah, yeah But we need more We need you to play another plague victim I also want that But I have to do this No, yeah, they were all very chuffed It's kind of like, I mean If you've been to the Globe, have you been to the Globe?

26:28I've never been to the Globe So it's like, it's an incredible space because it's how, it's the place where Shakespeare's plays are kind of supposed to be performed. They're written like that to be performed where you just walk out onto this big, like this here, but then you have people all the way around you, all up behind you like that. And you can see everybody. You can see every single little face looking right down at you like, yes, waiting for you to do Shakespeare. So, like, it's good, like, it's good preparation for just an audience generally. Yeah. Because you have to learn to, like, quell your fear of them.

27:07Like, I remember, like, the first time I ever performed there, I think I described it as being, like, a seagull caught in a tornado. You're just like, now is the winter of Addisky Turn! It's like trying to, like, make it work. But, yeah, it's an amazing place to be. And I'm an associate artist there, and my heart kind of still lives at the Globe. It's an amazing place. Well, that's fantastic. And it is just, it's amazing what you all have done over there. And I'm so happy you're over here talking about it. Congrats to you and the whole team. And thanks so much for being here, George. Thank you, bud.

27:41Such a pleasure to share with you. You guys, George Four Acres, SNL UK, streaming on Peacock and US.

27:51Late Night with Seth Meyers airs weeknights on NBC at 1235, 1135 Central. Original music on the Late Night Podcast is by the HE Band. Don't forget to follow the handle LateNightSeth on social media and tell your friends to subscribe to the Late Night Podcast wherever they get their podcasts.

28:16Thank you.