Donald Trump has a favorite new way to describe his “plan” for his war in Iran, Stephen Colbert pointed out on Monday night.
The president, increasingly under pressure to articulate a way forward in the expensive conflict, has decided to use one word in particular in his attempt to put Americans at ease. “Today, Trump was asked why he rejected Iran’s counterproposal,” Colbert said on The Late Show. “And he said few words—but so many times,” he continued, rolling a montage of Trump’s repetitive message.
“You know, a lot of people said, ‘Well, does he have a plan?’ Yeah, of course I do, I have the best plan ever,” Trump says in the first clip. “But I have a plan. You know what it is? It’s a very simple plan. I don’t know why you don’t say it like it is. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump goes on in the next clip, “It’s a very simple plan, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but very simply, when they say, ‘Does he have a plan?’ Yeah, I have a plan. The plan is very simple. I have a great plan, but the plan is they cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
“Yes, yes,” Colbert said when the show cut back to him. “He has such a ‘simple plan.’ The only thing simpler than the plan is the man who has it.”
Colbert is rounding out his last few episodes before The Late Show ends on May 21. His show was canceled by CBS last summer, three days after he criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, for settling a lawsuit from Trump for $16 million.
On Monday, he hosted late-night peers Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon on his show, all of whom he interviewed at the same time.
The fivesome reminisced about their old podcast, Strike Force Five, which they began during the 2023 Hollywood writers’ strike. The hosts teased that an “emergency” episode of the podcast would be taped after the show and released on Wednesday. The only contemporary missing was Jon Stewart, busy with his Daily Show, who Colbert joked was the team’s “designated survivor.”
“Someone has to survive for the president to be mad at,” he quipped.
