With Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and “The Daily Show” all on hiatus this week, the impossible task of making light of President Trump’s apocalyptic demand that Iran open the Strait of Hormuz or “a whole civilization will die” was left to Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
“It was D-Day. In this case, the ‘D’ stands for dementia,” said Kimmel. “Really, this is the same man that was just [expletive] about losing the Nobel Peace Prize, now he’s threatening a civilization with death. He went from Mahatma Gandhi to General Zod like that.” (For you boomers out there, General Zod is a DC Comics supervillain and rival of Superman.)
Kimmel noted that the temporary cease-fire, reached just before Trump’s arbitrary Tuesday night deadline, fit a familiar pattern.
“[Trump] announced that at the request of Pakistan, which has been facilitating negotiations, he was giving Iran two weeks to live,” Kimmel said. “This is how it goes every single time. Trump says something insane — he says, ‘I’m going to kill everybody tomorrow at 5 p.m.’ — we all freak out, and then he’s like, ‘Actually, I’ll kill everyone in two weeks.’ And then we relax and then he forgets he ever said it in the first place. He has the memory – and the skin color – of a goldfish.”
“Maybe the worst part of all is how relaxed the congressional Republicans are about it,” Kimmel said. “He threatens to annihilate a civilization, they’re like, ‘Well, you know how he is. He’s a big talker, he yaps.’”
Meanwhile, Colbert said he was confused by the wording of the president’s ultimatum to Iran.
“Trump concluded his threat to Iran by saying, ‘God bless the great people of Iran!’ Kind of a mixed message there,” said Colbert. “Like when Godzilla wore a T-shirt that said ‘I heart Tokyo.’”
Unlike congressional Republicans, who dare not cross Trump, Colbert observed that Iran isn’t relenting in the face of the president’s repeated threats.
“Iran has refused to give in to Trump’s demands, and yesterday, the regime called on ‘all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors to form human chains around power plants,’” Colbert said. “Kind of an interesting choice of who they called on there. The statement continued, ‘anyone who might be part of a protest movement, please line up single file in front of the power plant. Dress code is business flammable.’”
Mark Shanahan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.
