Jon Stewart skewered Donald Trump for sending ICE agents into America’s airports and, worse, for bragging it was his idea.
Trump announced the plan on Sunday in a Truth Social post, promising that ICE agents would arrive in major airports. The next day ICE showed up at 14 airports across the country, including in Atlanta, Chicago, and New York.
ICE officials were reportedly caught off guard by the news, with one of them admitting to CBS News, “I have no idea what we’re doing.”
When reporters asked Trump on Monday whose idea the deployment was, Trump proudly responded, “Mine.” He then compared his idea to the invention of the paper clip:
“182 years ago, a man discovered the paper clip,“ Trump said. ”It was so simple. And everybody that looked at it said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ ICE was my idea.”
Stewart mocked Trump’s decision in his monologue on Monday, asking, “Who the f--- even thought it was a good idea to send America’s most hair-trigger agency into America’s most hair-raising environment?”
Stewart showed the clip of Trump taking credit for the plan. He jokingly responded, “Right now in Iran, they’re going, ‘Are we talking to a top guy? Because I don’t think this is a top guy.’”
Stewart described Trump’s ICE plan as “so f---ing stupid,” and ripped the idea that ICE agents would help “calm the situation” at American airports.
“It makes perfect sense,” Stewart quipped. “It’s kind of like the way we calm our dogs during thunderstorms with a blanket of fireworks.”
Earlier in his monologue, Stewart joked, “Here in America, we don’t even need a war to degrade our own infrastructure. Our airports are collapsing all by themselves.”
The long lines at airport security are the result of the partial government shutdown that began in mid-February. The shutdown, which only affects agencies controlled by the Department of Homeland Security, delayed the paychecks for TSA agents starting on Mar. 13.
Over 400 TSA agents have reportedly quit so far, and thousands have called out from work. Trump has refused to end the shutdown until Democrats agree to pass his SAVE America Act, which Democrats have criticized for being a mass voter suppression bill.
A major issue is that ICE agents have not been trained to operate the screening machines that TSA agents regularly use. It’s a problem that Stewart didn’t find surprising:
“ICE isn’t trained on X-rays,” Stewart said. “No surprise. They don’t really seem to be trained on anything, actually.”
