Stephen Colbert on Trump’s first two weeks: ‘Like a chimp with a chainsaw’
Late-night hosts discussed the latest in Trump’s ill-advised tariff wars and the ever-expanding powers afforded to Elon Musk.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert started by calling it “a rough two weeks watching Donald Trump haphazardly dismantle our government like a chimp with a chainsaw”.
He then shared a recent discovery that an asteroid is projected to potentially hit Earth in 2032 so we need to “just hold on a little longer”.
Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods have made that country’s higher-ups “big mad” with a list of countermeasures targeting American companies and imports with an “unreliable entities list” now created.
Colbert then reminded people that the aforementioned “chainsaw has a name, it’s Elon Musk” and that this “very sad, very lonely little boy” had managed to “buy his way into our government”.
He said that Musk was now “blowing it up like a Tesla in self-driving mode” with a range of damaging ideas he was putting into action. “Why can’t you be a fun billionaire like Richard Branson?” he asked.
Musk has been given “unlimited access to the government’s servers” and is trying to use AI to calculate budget reductions, all because he donated $288m to Trump’s campaign.
Colbert told viewers that Musk had been given the title of “special government employee” which is “super official, super important” and “even comes with a plastic badge from Hasbro”.
Jimmy Kimmel
On Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host said that he was “not sure how to even start this show any more” with “so many startlingly crazy things happening”.
He started by talking about “the tariff of Nottingham” who has now backed off many of his earlier tariff plans or at least put them on pause.
Trump had also suggested that as well as putting tariffs on Canadian goods, he also wanted to make Canada the 51st state. “As if Drake hasn’t been through enough this week”, Kimmel quipped.
But he also said that it could end up biting Trump in the face if Canadians then gained more voting power in the US. “Forget Maga, our next president will be a kind-hearted lesbian moose,” he said.
He then spoke about Trump and Musk sourcing the list of 5,000 FBI employees who were involved in the January 6 investigation. “That seems fine, right?” he asked.
Kimmel said he probably just wanted to give them a “nice Christmas bonus”.
Trump has also floated the idea of dismantling the Department of Education. Kimmel said the idea “isn’t making America great again, it’s making America Florida”.
Kimmel also played footage of him making up a false claim about the US spending $100m on sending condoms to Hamas. “There are so many lies coming out of his mouth,” he said.
