Jon Stewart was baffled and amused by the latest scandal from the Trump administration, including a particular line from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
He began his Monday Daily Show monologue with a “quick update” on what he sarcastically described as “an administration that is once again carrying out its plans with competence and professionalism.”
He showed a series of news clips reporting that the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally included in a group chat with Hegseth and other top members of the Trump administration.
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The group chat was discussing top-secret information about attacking Houthi targets in Yemen, seemingly unaware that Goldberg could read everything.
”You know, back in my day, if you were a journalist who wanted leaked war documents, you’d work the sources, meet them in a dark garage, earn their trust, pound the pavement," said Stewart.
He joked, “Now, you just wait for the national security adviser to be distracted by White Lotus while he’s setting up his ‘Bomb Yemen’ group chat."
He did an impression of an old guy texting while watching Season 3 of The White Lotus. He mimed looking at the TV, asked, “Are those guys jerking each other off?” and went back to texting.
“By the way, I might be in this group chat,” Stewart added. “I don’t know. I don’t check my group chats.”
Stewart continued, “Perhaps my favorite text of the entire group chain was the one from our defense secretary saying, quote, ‘We are currently clean on OPSEC.’”
“OPSEC means operational security,” Stewart explained. “He said that in a group chat. A group chat with a journalist.”
“The journalist said that he didn’t think that the story was real until Yemen was bombed,” Stewart added, which got a sad reaction from the crowd.
“Oh, did I bring you down?” Stewart said. “Let’s move on.”
The Daily Show host couldn’t help but bring the subject up again, however. Later in his monologue, he covered a story about social media misinformation and how a fake Facebook account named Carol Smith was quickly tossed into a right-wing conspiracy rabbit hole.
“Carol Smith is a completely fictional character, and yet her children have stopped talking to her,” Stewart joked before adding, “Although she was apparently added to a Pentagon group chat.”
