“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert had to remind his viewers Monday night that he doesn’t make the news after they audibly groaned over his hard pivot from talking about the Oscars to the Iran War.
“Folks, you know what? I’m gonna start tonight with something fun and light,” the comedian announced at the top of his CBS monologue. “I know we usually start by talking about the stuff that we all worry about — and not to worry, the worry’s coming — but first, last night was the Oscars.” Colbert subsequently spent several minutes cracking lighthearted jokes about some of this year’s biggest Oscar winners, including Jessie Buckley, Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael B. Jordan.
Then, at the 3-minute mark of his intro, Colbert said, “OK, remember when I said the worry part would come later? We’re here!” His announcement was met with groans from his in-studio audience, which prompted the host to sheepishly remind them, “Hey, man! I don’t make the news! I just make jokes about it.” He then launched straight into discussing Trump’s “not-a-war-to-end-all-wars” with Iran.
“Oil prices have risen more than 40% since the start of the war, and in the U.S., gasoline prices have jumped more than 65 cents per gallon,” Colbert noted. “It’s so bad that we here in New York, on the pump, on the handles, they’re now labeled ’87,’ ’89’ and ‘Ayy, We Got a Freaking Billionaire Over Here!’”
“Trump is clearly frustrated with all this. On Friday, he ordered strikes against Iran’s main oil port, Kharg Island, which is also the pirate version of ‘Love Island,’” Colbert joked. You can watch his Monday monologue yourself, below.
The late night host then added that, after the United States’ initial wave of strikes on Kharg, Trump told reporters he might order more “just for fun,” a remark which visibly baffled Colbert. “Well, sure. I mean, in the famous words of J. Robert Oppenheimer, ‘Now I am become death… Whee!”
Colbert went on to slam Trump for having the nerve to ask countries like France, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. for help unblocking the Strait of Hormuz. “I wish him lots of luck with that. Trump turns all of our allies against us and now he’s begging for help,” he noted. “It’s like that classic children’s book, ‘The Boy Who Cried, ‘F—k You, Everybody!’ Then Kicked a Wolf.’”
“One way you can tell this is frustrating the administration is that they’ve started to leak some hot goss about new [Iranian] Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei,” Colbert added. “According to U.S. intelligence, the elder Khamenei was wary of his son ever taking power because he was perceived as not very bright. In fact, they wanted to place him in a kind of a really easy job, as depicted in the Iranian hit film, ‘Mojtaba Blart: Mall Ayatollah.’”
The latter comment was accompanied by an image of Khamenei photoshopped onto an altered poster of “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” which provoked a round of laughter from the “Late Show” audience. “That joke should not work,” Colbert admitted. “It’s such a long walk… it’s a mystery why that joke works.”
