After months of referring to the war in Iran as a war, President Trump is changing tactics, calling it several things except a war now. To Seth Meyers‘ eye, the Trump administration is really just treating the whole thing like HBO Max.
The NBC host devoted his “A Closer Look” segment on Wednesday night to calling out how Trump has repeatedly bragged about the war, only to suddenly start calling it “an excursion,” “a little journey” and, most recently, “a mini war.”
“Awww! Well, that’s fun! It’s a little mini-war. It can’t be illegal if it’s just a little ol’ thing,” Meyers joked before putting on his Trump impersonation. “I call it World War .003. It’s just a little, my beautiful little war.’”
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced the end of “Operation Epic Fury,” which is the name for the military operation that launched strikes in Iran, and the beginning of “Project Freedom,” an effort to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
“That’s right. They’re going from ‘Operation Epic Fury’ to ‘Project Freedom.’ They’re just renaming it. They’re treating the war like it’s HBO,” Meyers joked.
“They went from HBO, to HBO Go, to HBO NOW to HBO Max, to Max, back HBO Max. Although, if you ask me, a much simpler name would just be ‘the one that has Game of Thrones.’ But before you get used to Project Freedom, just FYI, Trump has already paused it.”
Why all the name changes? Meyers had an answer for that too, explaining that Trump “gave the whole game away” recently, when the president publicly admitted “they call it a military operation, because that way, you don’t have a war, you don’t have legal problems.”
“You don’t not break the law if you use different words for the illegal act,” Meyers scoffed. “‘You can put the cuffs away officer, my grandma wasn’t murdered. She’s just sleeping in a backyard dirt hole!’”
You can watch Seth Meyers’ full “A Closer Look” segment in the video above.
