Stephen Colbert is calling out the Trump administration’s nonsensical stance on the president’s war against Iran.
“I really didn’t want to start the monologue by talking about the war, but in honor of this administration, I went into this without a plan,” Colbert began.
“I say ‘war’ because it sure looks like a war, and Trump keeps calling it a war, but Congress never declared it a war, and MAGA was promised no new wars.”
The late-night host pointed out how President Trump and his administration are refusing to call the continuing conflict a “war.” In fact, many Republicans are calling the war “targeted, major combat operations.”
“So it’s worse than a war,” Colbert quipped. “It’s a war that got a thesaurus for Christmas.”
Trump, the self-proclaimed peace president, has been inconsistent on those terms, however. Colbert showed his audience a clip of the president calling the conflict a war multiple times, in contradiction to his insistence that it is not.
Colbert compared Trump’s use of the terminology to seeing a “huge pimple” on your boss’s nose.
“You know you’re not supposed to say it, but that just puts the word in your brain. It’s like when your boss has a huge pimple on his nose, and you’re like, ‘Don’t talk about the pimple.’ But as soon as he walks in, you go, ‘Hi, Mr. Pimple.’”
House Speaker Mike Johnson took the narrative even further during a briefing on the war, complicating the administration’s public stance. “It is a war, but it’s not our war." The speaker said that Iran has attacked three U.S. embassies in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli strikes this past weekend. “Those are sovereign territories of the U.S.,” Johnson said. “They have declared war on us.”
Colbert ripped into Johnson’s positioning, joking, “We’re not at war right now, folks. I totally buy it. ‘Babe. She declared sex on me. I simply reciprocated with a targeted heat-seeking moisture missile.’”
The war has been declared directionless by many. Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned the public, “It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried.”
