Sometimes when you’re a topical late-night comedian, a massive, unprecedented national security blunder is a little gift. At least that’s the impression left Monday after Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz not only conducted confidential planning about the administration’s plans to bomb targets in Yemen via group chat on Signal, but also accidentally included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic on the top secret discussion. Here’s our rundown.
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel had some thoughts, unsurprisingly, about the Trump Administration spilling top secret war plans via a commercial messaging app.
“In other words, our national security is being guarded by a bunch of doofs you wouldn’t trust to throw your cousin a surprise party.”
“No one on the group chat thought to ask, ‘Who is J.G. What are these initials?’ They could have been leaking state secrets to Jeff Goldblum for all they know.”
on Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg being unwittingly roped in on the military plans
“My God, if Joe Biden’s top military team accidentally texted these plans to a journalist, Laura Ingraham’s erection would be so rock-strong it would break through the wall like the Kool-Aid man.”
“‘If you read the content of these massages?’ The point is, we’re not supposed to read the content of these messages!”
on hegseth’s former fox news colleague will cain attempting to spin things
Kimmel also went after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for hyping up the military’s new F-47 fighter jet.
“You hear that, China? Our planes go up to 47 now. It’s Spinal Tap, the administration.”
on hegseth implying that the number 47 means the U.s. is serious
“‘F-47’ sounds like a vanity plate you’d get if you wanted everybody to know you don’t like Donald Trump.”
The host concluded with Trump’s complaints that a presidential portrait of him hanging in the Colorado Capitol Building isn’t to the president’s liking.
“I agree with him on this one. It’s not a very good likeness. I mean look how inaccurate the skin color is. The skin is the color of skin.”
Jon Stewart
The Daily Show host also chimed in the Trump Administration’s national security pratfall as he kicked off his Monday monologue.
“Oopsie-poopsie! You know, back in my day if you were a journalist who wanted leaked war documents, you had to work the sources, meet them in a dark garage, earn the trust, pound the pavement. Now? You just wait for the national security advisor to be distracted by The White Lotus while he’s setting up his ‘bomb Yemen’ group chat.”
But Stewart had bigger fish to fry, spending most of his Monday night monologue focused on Trump and free speech. As Stewart put it, “There are certain absurdities and hypocrisies that we find in our cultural moment that make for great fodder for humorous dialogue. Then there are other pronouncements by our elected officials, action by our government, that are so baldly bullsh*t that, even though you know it will have no effect, and that these powerful creatures have been genetically modified to resist shame or self-reflection of any kind, you just can’t help yourself but to go old school Daily Show gotcha.”
For emphasis, Stewart even donned a dark black wig to approximate his long-ago Daily Show younger-man hair.
“You can’t say words like ‘sex,’ or ‘women,’ or #MeToo? How can a lot of your cabinet members describe their weekends?”
on the trump administration’s DEI purge of certain terms
“You can’t protest in a way that offends the right, you can’t teach things that the right doesn’t want you to teach, you can’t read things that they don’t want you to read, you can’t use words that they don’t want you to use, but they love free speech!”
“He’s demanding they take it down because he believes this picture is unflattering. Which really makes you think—do you think other pictures of you are flattering? At least in the painting they blended the foundation into your hairline.”
on trump complaining about that portrait of him in the coloradi state capitol building
“Social media is free speech in the same way that Doritos are food.”
on republicans championing of social media, which is algorithmically designed to maximize profit for (and in some cases the idealogical positions of) its owners
“Where are my conspiracy theorists at, now that it’s on the right? For God’s sake, billionaires are designing machines to manipulate our speech to control our behavior and rewire our brains. They’re removing our regular speech and doing a—I don’t know—great replacement of it.”
Taylor Tomlinson
The After Midnight host also shared her unclassified thoughts on the Pentagon’s national security debacle.
“This is not helping Pete Hegseth’s reputation as guy who is always drunk.”
“This is a drunk guy mistake. This is the national security equivalent of air-dropping a d*ck pic to everyone in the office.”
“Obviously, this is a huge f*ck up. But don’t worry, the White House has responded saying that from now on, discussions of military operations will be conducted over much more secure lines—Snapchat.”
Stephen Colbert
Having just returned from his turn celebrating “hilariously lanky” fellow late-night icon Conan O’Brien who received the Mark Twain Prize at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, Stephen Colbert spent much of his monologue roasting the newly self-installed head of that formerly prestigious arts organization.
“‘Non-woke musicals.’ Also known as any musical you take your dad to.”
on trump’s desire to remake the kennedy center into a more conservative institution
“So… a dog?”
on leaked audio of trump regaling the kennedy center board with the time he went to see cats with “somebody i should not have been there with”
“Does he think every song in Cats is called ‘Cats?’ ‘Of course, the showstopper was that famous song about memories—’Cats.'”
on trump incorrectly recalling betty buckley singng a famous number
“Wow. Man alive, you could have given me a thousand guesses and that would have been all of them.”
on trump pitching himself as kennedy center host
“Really? Because it really seems like you want to do it. You’re like a guy who brought his guitar to the bonfire.”
on trump then claiming he doesn’t want to host
“Let’s be fair. I can see why he’d be upset, because that looks exactly like him.”
on trump’s reaction to that portrait in the colorado state capitol
Colbert moved on to two of the two sovereign nations Trump has decided he covets.
“Trump, he’s still mad they don’t want to be the 51st state, so he dispatched Secretary of Homeland Security and Real Housewife of Guantanamo Bay, Kristi Noem.”
on canada
“That’s pretty ominous. When he decides he wants something, he will not let go. I remember what he said about that French fry that fell under the Resolute Desk.”
on greenland
Jimmy Fallon
For the Tonight Show host, Monday’s monologue was all about celebrity weddings, White House branding opportunities, and the end of 23andMe. It seems Fallon didn’t get added to the group chat.
“Seriously, how bad is the price of eggs when even the government needs a sponsor?”
on trump seeking sponsors for the annual easter egg hunt
“Hey, if people can’t find peace on 4/20 it’s never gonna happen.”
on trump announcing an april 20 peace summit between russia and ukraine
“Although if there’s two things that don’t go together, it’s 4/20 and deadlines.”
“Thanks to Amazon, the cake will be sent in 38 separate boxes.”
on jeff bezos’ upcoming wedding
“The company said they were 50 percent sad, 37 percent disappointed, and 13 percent Scottish.”
on the potentially data-imperiling demise of dna testing company 23andMe
“It’s the worst news to hit the DNA testing business since Maury was cancelled.”
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