There are days under a Donald Trump presidency when even battle-hardened late-night comedians have to gather their jaws up off the floor to start making jokes. Such was the case on Wednesday after Trump, during a White House visit from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, made the surprise announcement of a plan to forcibly remove every resident of the war-torn Gaza Strip and turn the denuded region into a U.S.-owned and operated playground for the wealthy. Here’s LateNighter’s monologues roundup for Wednesday, February 4, 2025.
Seth Meyers
Meyers’ A Closer Look segment was dedicated to the fact that, as he put it in one of his classic Seth Meyers fake-outs, “Donald Trump laid out a detailed plan to lower grocery prices and bring down the cost of living—wait, sorry, I read that wrong. He wants to occupy the Gaza Strip and turn it into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East.'”
Noting that this shocking-to-nearly-everybody announcement flies in the face of his campaign trail “America first” stance on isolationism and the needlessness of endless foreign wars, Meyers suggested that Trump himself could see this A Closer Look coming.
“They love the montage,” Meyers-as-Trump noted right before an extended clip of Trump’s about-face, “and it has me saying one thing and then a second montage comes along of me contradicting myself. The second montage—that’s where they get you.”
[Meyers as Trump, after that second montage] “‘Oh boy do I have egg on my face, and that’s a problem because egg prices are through the f*ckin’ roof. Someone should do something about that, but first—Gaza Beach!'”
“It’s the same old trap we’re always in, of not knowing if this is a real idea or this is just Trump distracting us while [picture of Elon Musk] Casper the Very Unfriendly Ghost dismantles the federal government.”
[On Trump, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decrying the fact that Gaza “looks like a demolition site right now”] “‘And if we ever find the people who did it—whoops, he’s sitting right next to me.'”
[On Trump’s pitch for other countries to permanently take in every single displaced Palestinian] “So let me see if I understand this. The guy who’s famously anti-immigration wants Egypt and Jordan to take in millions of refugees. ‘I was on the phone with Egypt and Jordan and I told them, if there’s one thing I’ve always believed, it’s the more the merrier. Build bridges, not walls, I say.'”
While nearly every Democrat in Congress has come out against Trump’s plan, Meyers was unsparing to Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, the lone Democrat who seemed into the idea.
“It makes sense he likes this plan. The guy’s been dressed for the beach for 30 years. Looks like a cashier at a vape store on the boardwalk.”
“It’s an insane and unworkable idea that would be a massive violation of human rights, cause outrage around the world, and entangle the U.S. in exactly the kind of foreign quagmire he promised to keep us out of and you’re reacting to it like someone at the Carhart store just told you there’s a sale on hoodies and cargo shorts.”
Desi Lydic
The Daily Show host, like Meyers, was left practically speechless over Trump’s Gaza plan, feigning initial ignorance before exhaustedly shredding the ream of non-Trump stories she’d promised the audience she was going to joke about. After the clip announcing Trump’s plot, Lydic could only stare down the camera before sputtering out, “Okay, let me just ask: What? And, What?”
Trump is going to turn Gaza into the Riviera? He couldn’t turn Atlantic City into a nicer Atlantic City.”
“If anything, they tore down so many of his casinos, they turned Atlantic City into Gaza.”
“Okay, just so I’m clear. Your plan is to take over Gaza, turn it into Mar-a-Lago, and make sure that the Palestinians who live there can’t go back? That is the craziest thing he’s said since yesterday and until tomorrow.”
[On White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ shocked expression upon hearing Trump’s plan] “Look at her face. She looks like she just won Best Country Album at the Grammys.”
[On Netanyahu claiming that everyone’s response to Trump is always, “You know, he’s right.”] “No, they usually scratch their heads and say, ‘What the f*ck are you talking about?'”
Lydic then went after Republicans whose own shock at Trump’s scheme came couched in soft-pedaling so as not to incur Trump’s wrath.
[On GOP Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) saying of Trump’s announced takeover, “There’s a couple of kinks in that Slinky”] “‘There’s a couple of kinks in that Slinky?’ That’s how desperate these guys are to not openly disagree with Trump. They’re just making up sayings now.”
[On Fox News’ Steve Doocy proclaiming that the United States doesn’t invade other countries] “Of course America would never invade another country. You can read all about it in Steve Doocy’s American history book, Me Just Got Lobotomy by Steve Doocy.”
Stephen Colbert
Sometimes the only response to a Donald Trump administration is to break out the old comedy fright wig.
That’s how Stephen Colbert began his dissection of Trump’s Gaza announcement, a plan he lamented is just another in a long line of headline-grabbing moves where “it’s hard to know when something outrageous he says or does is an atrocity or just a shiny distraction. Or maybe a shiny atrocity.”
[On Trump’s explanation that America would “own” the newly cleansed Gaza] “Oh, great idea. All these years, I don’t know why no one thought to call shotgun on the Holy Land.”
[On Trump’s rosy, real estate developer plan for the region] “Yes, the Riviera of the Middle East. The Cancun of crises. The Sandals of sadness. The Carnival cruise of war crime.”
[On Susie Wiles’ undisguised shock] “That’s the face of a woman hoping she gets bumped up to first class on the flight to Nuremberg.”
Colbert wasn’t blind to the fact that there’s a whole world of horrors going on outside of Donald Trump plotting to ethnically cleanse two million people from their homeland. Like the fact that Don Jr just shot an endangered duck in Italy (with a suspiciously familiar plumage profile) called the ruddy shelduck.
“The beautiful, deep orange plumage with a touch of pale white around the eyes. Why would Don Jr have such hostile feelings about that duck?
Colbert continued to plumb the bottom reaches of his daily research memo, past Donald Trump and Elon Musk “picking our government apart like raccoons on a rotisserie chicken,” before settling finally on a refreshing run of jokes about the return of long-lost McDonald’s seasonal mascot Uncle O’Grimacey.
[On a 1978 commercial featuring the Irish-themed stereotype] “Ah, I miss the 1970’s. Back when the Happy Meal was four lead paint chips and a packet of Lucky Strikes.”
Jimmy Kimmel
The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host could only join in on the incredulous chorus, if his show-opening rhetorical question, “Are you out of your goddamn mind?,” is any indication.
“It’s like our country’s being run by the maniac from Saw. Donald Jigsaw Trump is running this.”
[On Trump’s response that “the world’s people” would displace the 2 million Palestinians] “‘The world’s people.’ Maybe The Village People, I don’t know. You can see he’s really thought this through.”
“He seems to think that the reason there’s conflict in Gaza is that nobody thought to give them a pickleball court.”
[On seemingly every other world leader objecting to Trump’s plan] “The only thing the United Nations and the Taliban have in common is they both think this is a terrible idea.”
[On Susie Wiles’ shocked expression] “That is the face of the woman whose soul just exited her body at the speed of light.”
Taylor Tomlinson
Picking up on Seth Meyers point, Taylor Tomlinson kicked off her pre-game After Midnight monologue by stressing that, distraction or no, what Elon Musk and his “goon squad of unelected f*ckbois” are doing to the federal government is terrifying. “We shouldn’t be clapping, it’s not good,” Tomlinson admonished her audience after a photoshopped picture of Musk and Donald Trump as bulls in a china shop representing Americans’ Social Security and private information got them laughing.
Still, Tomlinson is here to get those laughs, even if her rundown of just how dangerous Musk’s Trump-sanctioned gutting of numerous vital government and humanitarian programs left her just as baffled and alarmed as her late-night colleges were with the Gaza news.
“Our big story tonight, unfortunately: Elon Musk has done it again. [Picture of Musk doing a Hitler salute at Trump’s inauguration] No, not that. I mean, he probably has, in private.”
“The president signed an executive order giving Elon the power to make the government more ‘efficient.’ Which is like saying, ‘Why sleep when it’s more efficient to do cocaine?'”
[On the administration’s reassurance that Musk has merely “read-only” access to Americans’ personal information] “This would be like if your nudes got leaked and everybody was like, ‘Don’t worry, people are just looking at them.'”
Moving on from Musk to those unelected junior henchmen (all between 19 and 26) helping him, Tomlinson was deeply skeptical. Especially of one 19-year-old Canadian named Edward Coristine, better known in internet forums by his handle, “Big Balls.”
“Call me crazy but I don’t love the idea of handing the government over to guys who are still on their parents’ health insurance.”
“I guess the only bright side here is that he will probably only steal Social Security numbers that end in 420 and 69.”
“Have you ever seen a more Joffrey looking motherf*cker in your life? He looks like if Jimmy Neutron joined the Hitler Youth.”
“This guy looks like if the phrase, ‘Do You know who my father is?,’ gained sentience.”
“Imagine working decades in public service distributing humanitarian aid and then having to defend your job to a kid who just discovered the show Family Guy.”
Jimmy Fallon
When even The Tonight Show host is cracking jokes about your plan, it’s probably time to rethink things.
“Trump wants to take over Greenland, Canada, and now the Gaza Strip. He’s like everyone at 2 a.m. drunk ordering off Amazon.”
“A source close the president said it was Trump’s own idea. Everyone was like, ‘Oh yeah, we can tell.'”
[On Democratic Congressman Al Green (D-TX) announcing he’s bringing articles of impeachment against Trump for his Gaza plan] “Good luck with that. There’s a better chance of, uh, turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.”
“At this point Trump’s just one impeachment away from getting a free sandwich at the White House cafeteria.”
And then it was on to those skyrocketing egg prices that suddenly became a non-issue once Trump was elected.
“Due to the rising cost of eggs, more Americans are now investing in backyard chickens. People really want eggs. Today I saw a New Yorker squeezing a pigeon like a ketchup bottle.”
[On a recent heist of over 100,000 organic eggs in Pennsylvania] “Right now the suspects are considered armed and cage-free.”
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