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Entertainment

Trump Was the Biggest Loser at the 2017 Emmys

Sunday's awards show was a big night for 'Handmaid's Tale' ​and Donald Glover, but it was an even bigger night for roasting the president.

Donald Trump has been calling the Emmys "horrendous" and "sooooo boring" ever since The Apprentice lost in the mid 2000s—but the 2017 Emmy Awards gave him a few more reasons to be butthurt. Sunday night's awards show was a big night for The Handmaid's Tale and Donald Glover, but it was an even bigger night for roasting the president.

Host Stephen Colbert set the tone for the night during his opening monologue, bursting into an anti-Trump musical number complete with a Chance the Rapper verse and a personal welcome to the president who was presumably tuning in. "Looking forward to the tweets," Colbert quipped.

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"You can't deny that every show was influenced by Donald Trump in some way," the host said. "All the late night shows, obviously. House of Cards. The new season of American Horror Story—and of course next year's Latin Grammys, hosted by Sheriff Joe Arpaio."

And he's right. Most of the shows that took home statues this year were somehow a response to Trump, either directly, like Alec Baldwin's win for his portrayal of Trump on SNL, or—in the case of Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe's award for writing on Master of None—by telling stories about race and sexuality that feel vital in our current political climate.

The evening's only weird misfire was when Colbert surprised the crowd with former press secretary and apparent friend of the talk show circuit Sean Spicer. The pair riffed on his difficulty judging crowd size and Melissa McCarthy's Emmy-winning send-up of Spicer, but the skit fell flat to many viewers who called the Emmys out on normalizing the ex-Trump mouthpiece. CNN reports that Colbert and show's producers expected the negative response, but figured the surprise would be worth whatever blowback came along. Hard to say if it was worth it, but everyone was definitely surprised.

But the night continued on smoothly, with Handmaid's Tale becoming the Emmy darling of the evening. Hulu's brilliant dystopian resistance series won Best Drama, with Elisabeth Moss and Ann Dowd winning Best Lead Actress in a Drama and Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, respectively, for their roles in the series. The show also took home awards for its writing, directing, and cinematography.

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"Go home, get to work, we have a lot of things to fight for," showrunner Bruce Miller told the crowd as he claimed the Best Drama award.

In the comedy category, Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her sixth consecutive Emmy for her role in HBO's Veep. The show also won Best Comedy, beating out Black-ish, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Donald Glover's incredible series, Atlanta.

It was still a big night for Glover, though—he won Emmys for both his acting and directing in Atlanta's first season, and landed another punch on Trump during his acceptance speech.

"I want to thank Trump for making black people number one on the most oppressed list," Glover said. "He's probably the only reason I'm up here.

Head over to Los Angeles Times for a full list of all the 2017 Emmy nominees and winners.