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Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump’s tweet celebrating Robert Mueller’s death, his ICE intervention at chaotic airports and his bluffing on “talks” with Iran.
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart hoped you had a happy Monday, because “the dizzying, chaotic carnival ride that is Donald Trump’s America continues to careen down Shitshow Hill”, he said on The Daily Show. “It’s fucking madness out there: TSA lines longer than your actual trip, escalating threats in the Middle East, planes driving into trucks.”
In fact, “the only thing giving me joy is looking forward to this season of The Bachelorette”, he joked, referring to the doomed season with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul, pulled three days before its premiere after video surfaced of a previously reported domestic violence incident from 2023. “I mean, they’ve got a strong Mormon woman. She seems lovely. I hope that she finds love – hold on a second, I’m getting a call. Nooo!
“But luckily, with everything going wrong in our country, our intrepid leader is utterly unbothered,” Stewart continued. “The world disintegrates around him, largely due to his actions, yet he still managed to spend the weekend golfing a couple of times and partying at Mar-a-Lago.
“I really think that the less fun we’re all having, the better he seems to be doing,” he added. “Does he run on our misery? Does that make him stronger?”
Nevertheless, Trump took time to claim that he was participating in “strong talks” with Iran; the country’s state media denied that any such talks took place.
“Well, now we’re in the uncomfortable position of who to believe,” said Stewart. “Normally in this situation, I think we’d all be inclined to in some measure not trust the pronouncements coming from this theocratic and corrupt regime – Iran. For clarity, we’re talking about Iran.
“Look, Donald Trump is without a doubt one of the most prodigious liars this country has ever produced,” he added. “He’s our Supreme Misleader.
“But the chaos this very actual war is creating is making us question even his reality-distorting powers. Let’s step back into the wayback machine. All the way back, I don’t know, June, when Israel and the United States first bombed Iran’s nuclear program.”
Stewart then played a series of clips in which Trump claimed, among other things, that “we wiped out the nuclear capability of Iran. Obliterated it.” “It was obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before.” “I would say it’s set back permanently.” “That place is under rock. That place is demolished” And “They’re never gonna have nuclear.”
He then played a clip of the CNN host Kaitlan Collins asking him: “If you obliterated their nuclear sites last summer with your strikes, then how can you argue it was an imminent threat now?”
“We hit them so hard we oblitted them – obliterated them, but that doesn’t mean with the right equipment you can’t dig down and go get it,” he responded.
“Actually, I think it’s exactly what it means,” Stewart noted. “God damn it. Motherfucker. It’s so annoying.”
Stewart then consulted the dictionary: “‘To obliterate: to destroy completely, leaving nothing behind.’ There’s nothing in here about, ‘Well, we completely obliterated it, unless they have shovels.’”
Jimmy Kimmel
In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel touched on Trump’s reaction to the death of Robert Mueller, the former special counsel who investigated Russian interference in 2016 and links between Trump and Moscow. In a Truth Social post, the president said he was “glad” Mueller died at age 81 – “an important reminder,” said Kimmel, “that no matter how busy he is, President Trump will always carve out time to be a petty little bitch.
“The thing that makes this so deeply childish is that Trump didn’t have to say anything,” he added. “He could’ve just said nothing, the same way he’s been doing with the Trump-Epstein files all along.”
In other news, Trump deployed ICE agents in overcrowded US airports, where TSA agents are working without pay due to a partial government shutdown, a day after the idea was floated on Fox News by the radio host Clay Travis, who said it was pitched by a caller into his show. “Which means it’s very possible that the president got this idea from Linda in Arizona,” said Kimmel, “but he’s still saying ‘it was me.’
“The Senate majority leader, John Thune, gave Trump a proposal yesterday that would have restarted pay for TSA agents while this ICE funding is figured out in a separate bill, but the president shot that down,” he continued. “So, when you and your children are using Cinnabons for pillows in the Delta terminal next weekend, you can thank Donald J Trump for that.”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers offered a succinct recap of yet another chaotic weekend under Trump 2.0: “The president sent ICE to airports and threatened to obliterate Iran’s power plants, then backed off after talks with Iran that Iran said are not happening, then blamed Pete Hegseth for the war, and he also spent the weekend posting a bunch of deranged stuff to his social media accounts.”
But “what’s really galling to me is when Trump’s cronies demand that we have limitless patience and understanding for him, even though he has none for anyone else”. Meyers then played a clip of the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, refusing to answer a question about the appropriateness of the president celebrating an American citizen’s death online, instead asking for “a little empathy for what has been done to him and his family”.
“I’m sorry, empathy for the Trumps?” Meyers retorted. “Is this the same family who made billions of dollars on some bullshit crypto coin in the last year. What empathy should we have – ‘How will they ever find time to spend it all?’
“He just said he’s glad someone died, but we have to tiptoe around his feelings like he’s a rabid dog during a thunderstorm,” he fumed. “This is Maga in one sentence: empathy for me, but not for you. And this hypocrisy shouldn’t be surprising, considering that the same people who spent years complaining about celebrities and participation trophies now line up behind a celebrity who collects participation trophies like they’re Labubus.”
Meyers also touched on chaos at US airports. “Don’t worry, the president is on it,” he joked. “He’s sending the best of the best to help, an elite squad of civil servants who’ve been through rigorous training with impeccable qualifications and – I’m just kidding, he’s sending ICE.”
