Remember when MAGA touted Donald Trump as a commander in chief who wouldn’t get America into another needless war?
Jon Stewart does. On Monday, “The Daily Show” host played multiple 2024 clips of conservatives hailing Trump as a “peace through strength” president who wouldn’t wade the country into any open-ended armed conflicts, as some of his predecessors did.
“How quickly the right has gone from ‘peace through strength’ to ‘peace through war,’” said Stewart, calling the bombing of Iran “Mess O’Potamia: America’s Next Top Muddle.” “We’re all just along for the ride in a war with no clear purpose, no end in sight, all at the whims of Donald Trump.”
Predictably, the bombing of Iran was very much on the minds of late-night hosts Monday. They found it both odd and unsettling that Trump was at Mar-a-Lago — not the White House — when he announced that America was at war.
“It required intense secrecy, which is why Donald Trump watched it unfold from his membership-only beach resort in Florida, from the very spot on which, just two months ago, Vanilla Ice performed onstage with a Ninja Turtle, just as the prophecy foretold,” said Jimmy Kimmel. “How does that work? ‘Don’t go into the cabana next to the pool house — they’re having World War III in there tonight.”
Stewart wondered why Trump wouldn’t want to at least look presidential in addressing the nation.
“This is how we’re doing this? Mar-a-Lago basement? No lighting? You don’t even have one of those influencer halo lights?” Stewart said. “Not to nitpick, obviously, but a baseball hat? We’re going with a baseball hat for a war of choice? … We should at least be thankful that the hat is forwards.”
“Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon said the optics of Trump kicking off “Operation Epic Fury” (the defense department’s fanciful name for the attack on Iran) at Mar-a-Lago were jarring.
“I’m pretty sure it’s the first war to ever be started next to an omelet station,” Fallon said.
“But was it a secure room, though?” asked “Late Show” host Seth Meyers about the president’s makeshift situation room in Palm Beach. “I had a more secure room when I was trying on jeans at Old Navy.”
“Wait a minute, you started a war in the Middle East and you didn’t even go into the office?” Meyers said. “You’re gonna ‘work from home’ it? How am I gonna get my writers to come into work when the president of the United States treats war like a Teams meeting?”
The late-night hosts also questioned the timing of the attack. Is it possible, they wondered, that the bombing has less to do with Iran’s already-hobbled nuclear capabilities and more to do with the Jeffrey Epstein investigation?
Said Kimmel: Operation Epic Fury “is different from its original title, which was ‘Operation Epstein-o Distract-o.’”
“Fun fact,” said Stephen Colbert. “Epic Fury is an anagram for ‘Forget Epstein.’”
Mark Shanahan can be reached at mark.shanahan@globe.com. Follow him @MarkAShanahan.