Late-night hosts reacted to Donald Trump’s indefinite extension of the Iran ceasefire as his cabinet fumbles negotiations over the unpopular war.
Jimmy Kimmel
“The White House is not a fun place to be right now,” said Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday evening. “The strait of Hormuz is like a Toys ‘R’ Us - nobody has any idea if it’s still open or not.”
A Trump-imposed ceasefire between the US and Iran was scheduled to end on Wednesday night, and on Monday, Trump said it was “highly unlikely” he would extend it. “He said if a deal wasn’t reached, Iran was going to be bombed like Kash Patel at the Poodle Room in Vegas,” Kimmel quipped, referring to a bombshell report from the Atlantic on the FBI director’s alleged excessive drinking and unexplained absences. “And that line in the sand was reinforced by his tweenage press secretary,” Karoline Leavitt.
“President Trump has proven before that he does not bluff,” Leavitt fumed on Fox News. “When he makes a promise, he follows through on it. And I’m not sure why after 10 years of covering this president, the American media still cannot understand that when President Trump says he’s going to do something, he’s going to do it.”
“That’s right,” Kimmel mocked. “He said he was going to end the war in Ukraine in one day, he said he was going to release his tax returns, the new healthcare plan, the wall, Greenland – this is a man whose word is as good as the gold commode he sits on.”
And then by Tuesday, of course, Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely. “What Trump is doing right now, it’s like if you hired a plumber to install a new toilet, and the plumber tells you it will only take an hour to put it in, and then there you are eight weeks later and you still have a hole in the ground,” Kimmel said.
“So you call him and he says, ‘Installation is going great, everything’s perfect, ahead of schedule.’ In fact, he actually finished the job back in March. But as soon as he can get his vice-plumber over there to flush it, your bowel movements will go down better than ever before. Definitely better than Joe Biden’s, OK?’”
Stephen Colbert
“We’re in week eight of the Iran war, and as of tonight it is unclear if US-Iran peace talks will happen one day before Trump’s ultimatum expires,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, in “not super-comforting” news.
The talks were supposed to begin on Tuesday in Islamabad, Pakistan, but “based on what we know now, it doesn’t look Islama-good,” the Late Show host quipped, because on Tuesday afternoon US negotiators delayed their trip, and Trump announced that he was indefinitely extending the ceasefire.
The president claimed he was not worried about the deal, posting on his Truth Social platform: “I read the Fake News saying that I am under ‘pressure’ to make a Deal. THIS IS NOT TRUE! I am under no pressure whatsoever, although it will all happen, relatively quickly! Time is not my adversary.”
“Oh yeah? Have you taken a gander at your ankles lately?” Colbert responded, “because it’s never a good sign when your shoes have a muffin top.”
Trump also called into cable news and claimed that had he been president during the Vietnam war, he would have won the war “very, very quickly”, forcing Colbert to break out his Trump impression: “I’ve studied Vietnam very closely. If I had been president, Bubba would still be alive. And Lieutenant Dan would have legs. No, folks, it’s like my mama always said – ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, and I do not love you, Donald.’”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers reported news of Kash Patel’s $250m defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic for its investigation into his alleged alcohol abuse. “You’d have to be pretty drunk to think a print magazine can afford $250m,” Meyers laughed.
The host also touched on the negotiations between the US and Iran over a three-page plan to end the war. “Specifically, Trump’s trying to negotiate them down to one page,” he joked.
In a new interview, the president said he would reach a peace deal with Iran “one way or another, the nice way or the hard way”.
“The nice way or the hard way? That’s not how you reach a peace deal,” said Meyers. “That’s something you yell during a bank robbery.”
And in unrelated news, a new Grateful Dead app launched featuring high-quality recordings of more than 400 full live shows. “Said Dead fans, ‘Wow, it sounds even better than I don’t remember,’” Meyers quipped.
