Since every day is a really long day in Trump’s America, it’s understandable if your memory of Wednesday morning is a blur beyond the news that Paul Ryan is leaving Congress at the end of his term instead of seeking re-election in the November midterms. But something else big happened on Wednesday morning: Donald Trump’s erratic tweet about Syria. Jimmy Kimmel spent a good part of his monologue Wednesday night using Trump’s own past comments about Syria to argue against Trump’s current comments about Syria.
“I know a lot of you are on vacation, maybe you’re not paying attention, but today was another crazy day in the United States thanks of course in large part to our crazy president, Donald Jamaica Trump. The President directed his morning twitter tirade at Russia today. He wrote, ‘Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!’” Kimmel said.
For the next several minutes Kimmel presented a detailed counterargument, in the form of a series of old Trump tweets taking the exact opposite stance on whether the U.S. should intervene in Syria.
Kimmel: “It’s hard to argue with Trump on that. Unless of course, your name is Donald Trump — who, when Obama was President, tweeted…”
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/377038618407493632?lang=en
Kimmel: “And why shouldn’t we attack? Well, for starters…”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/374712124620406784
Kimmel: “That makes sense. This does too.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/375721267686412288
Kimmel: “And that could be a disaster, a worldwide conflict, which is why he insisted…”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/375609403376144384
Kimmel: “So what is he saying here?”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/375075774644363264
Kimmel: “OK. Fair enough.”
Then, as a bonus, Kimmel pulled up an old clip of Trump whining about how you can’t have the element of surprise if you tell everyone you’re planning to intervene in stuff.
“Whatever happened — remember the great generals — it was called ‘element of surprise’. The element of surprise,” Trump said in the clip.
“Good question. What happened to that?” Kimmel asked. “In truth, he did surprise his staff. They had no idea he was planning to tweet that stuff about missiles today. So that was a little of a surprise.”
You can watch all of Wednesday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC.com or in the ABC app.