Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert gave their reactions to the Gaza peace deal on Monday night. Both late-night hosts conceded that President Donald Trump successfully helped broker a breakthrough ceasefire that resulted in Hamas releasing the remaining Israeli hostages, while still finding plenty of other things to criticize the president about.
“What a day for Donald Trump,” Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “You know what? He finally did something positive today and I want to give him credit for it — because I know he’s not the type to take credit for himself … While we’re only in the first phase of what will undoubtedly be a long and tricky process, but the fact is the bombing has stopped, the hostages have been released and Trump deserves some of the praise for that. So I know it sounds crazy to say, but good work on that one, President Trump. Now maybe you can not invade Portland. Just an idea.
“Trump’s been lobbying hard to try to win the Nobel Prize for peace,” he added. “Now Trump’s focused on winning the prize next year, which is fine. Let him keep trying to make peace. I’m fine with coming up with prizes and trophies to motivate. Give them the ‘Nobel Re-Open the Government and Leave Healthcare Alone’ prize.”
Colbert, who was off last week, opened with a breathless rundown of all the news he missed: “The government shutdown is headed into its third week; Trump fired more than 4,000 federal workers; the DOJ charged New York Attorney General Leticia James with fraud after Trump’s pressure campaign; Trump sent troops to Chicago and Portland and is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act; Trump announced a whopping 100 percent new tariff on China, which caused the stock market to have its worst day in 6 months — and Taylor Swift dropped her new album, The Life of the Showgirl, to merely mixed reviews,” Colbert said on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “Well, those reviewers are just jealous of her talent and of Travis Kelce’s majestic redwood.”
Then Colbert got to the peace deal, and he had quite a lot to say about it.
“There is some good news out there today, thanks to Trump’s newly brokered ceasefire in Gaza, all living Israeli hostages and almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have been released,” Colbert said to audience cheers. “It’s important. Credit where credit is due — Donald Trump did something good.”
Colbert pauses for a quick beat. The audience remained silent.
“Are we still canceled?” Colbert asks, looking off stage. “You sure? I tried.
“It’s kind of surprising to see him do something good,” Colbert marveled. “It reminds me of in Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader revealed this shocking secret.”
There was then a quick cut to the famous climax of the Star Wars film, only instead of Vader intoning “I am your father,” he says, “I am an organ donor.”
“Despite the deal on Friday, in a truly foreseeable turn of events, Trump did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Colbert continued. “How dare you, Nobel Committee? The man is a paragon of peace. He walks in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King … After losing his campaign for the thing you don’t campaign for, Trump said he didn’t do the peace deal for the Nobel. And the White House communications director, Steven Chung, agreed, saying, ‘President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian.’ We remove that heart from one of the detainees in our ICE facilities. He keeps it in the Oval Office next to the Diet Coke button in a little bowl.”
Colbert then said, “On his flight over to Israel, Trump was asked by Fox News whether the ceasefire he brokered might help him in the afterlife,” before playing a clip of Trump responding, “‘I don’t think there’s anything [that’s] going to get me into heaven.’ I agree with Donald Trump. While Trump tries to bring peace to the Middle East, he’s trying just as hard to bring war to the Midwest. And personally I’m horrified to see how he’s stomping on my old stomping grounds of Chicago, Illinois, where I lived for over a decade. ICE has been terrorizing communities in the Windy City, going door to door in front of elementary schools, arresting immigrants, legal or otherwise, arresting U.S. citizens without any due process, and teargassing journalists who are merely reporting on what they’re doing.”
Here are last night’s monologues from ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, below:
