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Late-night hosts looked into the murky goals, economic impact and disrespect for military protocol of Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
Stephen Colbert
“We’re on day 10 of the Iran war,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday evening, “and we’re still no closer to learning what the goal is. Is it regime change? Is it ending a nuclear program? Is it changing the name to Donald Trump’s Iran-a-Lago?”
“But we are learning more about the cost,” he noted, as the first week of the war alone is estimated to have cost about $6bn. “Do you know what you could buy with $6bn? Twenty-seven Kristi Noem horsey commercials!” he joked before clips of the very expensive, controversial ad campaign that likely ended Noem’s tenure as secretary of homeland security.
Despite the exorbitant cost, Trump said over the weekend that this new surprise war would stop only after Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, to which Iran replied: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave.”
“OK, that’s spooky, and metal as hell,” said Colbert.
Trump explained on Air Force One: “We don’t want to come back every five years or 10 years and do this ... we want to pick a president that’s not going to be leading their country into a war.”
“When can we pick one of those?” Colbert quipped.
Still, Trump told CBS News: “I think the war is very complete … pretty much.”
“Yes, very complete, pretty much,” Colbert mused. “Just like that famous banner: Mission accomplished … in a manner of speaking.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers examined the economic fallout of Trump’s “reckless and illegal” war in Iran, which sent oil prices soaring.
Which is bad news for Trump, given that “the central thesis of Trump’s campaign” was “bring down energy prices and prices for everything else will fall. And through the first year of his presidency, even as prices for almost everything else rose, there was one price he kept bragging/lying about.”
That would be gasoline, which Trump frequently (and inaccurately) boasted about, such as claiming her saw gas for $1.85 a gallon in Iowa. “Where did you see gas for $1.85, Turner Classic Movies?” Meyers joked. “Also even if this is real, you know we live everywhere, right? Not everyone can fill up at Crazy Dave’s Discount Gasoline at Cedar Rapids or whatever the fuck you saw.”
Energy prices, Meyers explained, were “the main thing he got elected on, the main thing he promised to fix, the main thing he bragged about”. And yet, thanks to his war in Iran, the price of oil has now topped over $100 a barrel for the first time in over four years, with a gallon of gas up an average of $0.50 across the country. “You can lie about many things in American life, but one thing you can’t lie about is gas prices,” said Meyers. “They’re on giant signs on the side of the road. Everyone sees it.”
“And honestly, we should do giant signs for the rest of our politics,” he added. “There should be huge signs across the country that say [Trump] felony counts, or number of times the president has fallen asleep on live TV.”
“Trump’s relearning the same lesson Joe Biden learned: you can’t convince people the economy is awesome if they think it sucks,” he concluded. “Trump lied about ending foreign wars, and he lied about bringing down prices, and now those two lies are coming together”
Jimmy Kimmel
“We’ve now lost seven American lives in Trump’s war on Iran,” said Jimmy Kimmel on Monday, “and paying respect to troops who sacrificed everything as a result of a decision you made is one of, if not the most, important things a president does.”
“But God forbid he just do it normally and respectfully,” he continued. “On Saturday, Trump made history becoming the first president to attend a dignified transfer while wearing his own merch on his head. He wore a gold Donald Trump brand USA hat.”
The white hat currently sells for $55 on Trump’s website. But viewers of Fox News didn’t see it, as the network, in an apparent bid to hide the outfit from viewers, aired old footage from a different dignified transfer in which Trump did not wear any hat. A Fox spokesperson later explained that the network had “inadvertently aired file footage from a previous dignified transfer ... The archival footage was mistakenly used during the video sourcing process. We regret the error and apologize for the incorrect footage.”
Kimmel was not convinced. “We deeply regret the error and deeply regret getting caught for the error,” he joked. “Whenever the president does something shameful, the heroes at Fox News swoop in to clean it up for him.”
“But hey, these things happen, right? I’m sure if CNN made that mistake, the folks at Fox would be super chill about it,” he aded. “And I know that if any president did something that was deemed to be disrespectful – I’m sure if Obama or Biden or even a vice-president, Kamala Harris, did that – if one of them ran afoul of military protocol, I’m sure Fox would look the other way on that, too … right?”
