Seth Meyers Bans Donald Trump From His Late Night Show

Host made the announcement during last night's program

Seth Meyers made a major announcement during the beginning of his show last night: that Donald Trump is not welcome on his program.

"Trump is stoking fear and spreading hate," Meyers said when explaining the reasoning behind his decision before adding, "We cannot allow it to become normalized."

The Late Night show host also addressed the news that Trump had pulled the Washington Post's press credentials after complaining of one of their headlines mentioning his response to the mass shooting in Orlando.

"As for the Washington Post, we here at Late Night believe in freedom of the press and therefore have decided to stand in solidarity with them. So as long as the Washington Post is banned from Donald Trump's campaign, Donald Trump will be banned from ever coming on this show."

But Meyers concluded with a modest joke about the Republican presidential candidate, saying, "To be fair, he wasn't coming on anyway, let's be honest. He isn't interested in being here."

All politics aside, Trump most likely wasn't watching Meyers' program last night to hear the news, as he was celebrating his 70th birthday. Hours after Meyers' announcement was made on-air, Trump released the following statement:

"He has begged me to do the show for the last two years. I have told him emphatically ‘no.'  I only like doing shows with good ratings, which as everybody knows, I only make better (by a lot)." 

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)