Nikki Glaser‘s second go at hosting the Golden Globes wasn’t completely devoid of political punchlines. Early in the awards show, the comedian announced, “The Golden Globe for best editing goes to … the Justice Department!” Her sarcastic jab at the redacted Epstein list was followed by a shot at Bari Weiss’ CBS News, despite the Globes airing on CBS. “The award for most editing goes to CBS News,” she said. “America’s newest place to see B.S. news.” She had more planned, including cracks at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Donald Trump, but decided against including them.
“It’s not funny,” Glaser said on The Howard Stern Show about using politics as comedy material. She had planned a joke about hating ICE, but scrapped it. “I was going to come in at some point and say, ‘I’m hearing from the bar that we’re out of ice. And you know, we don’t really need ice. And actually, I hate ice,” she said. “It just felt like, oh, even that’s just being too trivial.” A few days before the 2026 Golden Globes broadcast, a masked ICE agent in Minneapolis fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three.
“That’s what it felt like — this isn’t even that anymore,” Glaser continued. “It’s hard to strike the right tone.” She also decided that a bit about the recent vote to rename the Kennedy Center after Trump wasn’t tonally appropriate. The line was originally sent to her by actor Steve Martin and involved her joking that she’d arrived to the “Trump Beverly Hilton” for the Golden Globes after a visit to the “Trump Kennedy Center.” Martin agreed it should be left out. “It was like, you just don’t say that guy’s name right now,” Glaser said. “I just want to give it space.”
The rest of the broadcast went off (mostly) without a hitch. “Glaser returned to host this year’s bash, kicking off the 2026 TV awards-show season,” Rolling Stone wrote in a review of the night. “She truly understands what the Golden Globes are all about: vanity, glitz, booze, celebrities desperate for camera time, cheap jokes about plastic surgery.”
From Rolling Stone US
