If we’re being charitable, Donald Trump‘s military parade on Saturday was extremely underwhelming, so it was easy pickings for late-night comedians who took great delight in finding yet another thing to clown the president about.
Amid the rather grim news at home and abroad, including ICE raids, soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles, as well as Israel bombing Iran and the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and Jon Stewart took the chance for a small bit of joy at Trump’s misery attending his poorly attended parade and wasted no moment to compare it to the millions who marched at Saturday’s “No Kings” protests that were held across the U.S.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, host Kimmel dove straight into the parade at the top of his monologue. The parade, that was ostensibly to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army but also just so happened to land on Trump’s own birthday, was a layup for Kimmel, who described the event as a “G.I. Joe-themed birthday party.” “After all the hype and money, and somewhere around $50 million, it was boring,” said Kimmel. “It was basically a $50 million version of when a 5-year-old shows you every car in his Hot Wheels collection.”
Kimmel added, “We paid for most of it, but he brought in some corporate sponsors, including the UFC, a crypto company and Scott’s Miracle Grow — which is the product Trump uses on his head. There were flyovers, there were combovers.”
After showing a clip of Trump falling asleep during the parade, Kimmel said, “There’s Sleepy Don taking it all in. And in fairness that’s as close as he gets to be able to sleep with his wife so he took the opportunity.” Lining up another clip of Trump and First Lady Melania Trump’s typically cold body language at the parade that saw them awkwardly try to hold hands, Kimmel added, “This almost makes me feel bad for him, almost. So it’s his birthday, and well there’s no good reason for us to be paying to celebrate it, you’d think his wife might celebrate it right? They’re married and well watch this, look at his hand as he makes a little move to lock pinkies and… uh nope! That’s known as the ‘Slovenian snub’.”
A jubilant Stephen Colbert also gleefully dunked on the president on the Late Show. “I am in a
great mood tonight because this weekend was Father’s Day and Daddy got just what he wanted — no one came to Trump’s big stupid birthday parade.” Colbert then cited White House claims that 250,000 people turned up in Washington, DC for the parade, and countered with plenty of photos and video evidence that showed the opposite. “Apparently a quarter of a million people looks like this, they must be really good at hide and seek. MAGA stands for ‘Make America Grass Again’ I guess.”
Colbert, like Kimmel, zeroed in on Trump’s own body language during the parade. “It looked like nobody was having a good time at this thing, not even Donald Trump,” Colbert said, describing the glum-looking president as “one sad sack of potatoes.” “It was such a long day that the birthday boy seemed to fall asleep during the fireworks.”
As well as Trump’s latest grift with Trump Mobile, Seth Meyers talked at length about the president’s parade during his “Closer Look” segment on Late Night. “[What cheered me up] was seeing Donald Trump looking super sad at his military parade. And I’ll tell you why this cheered me up,” Meyers said as he focused on a picture of Trump looking miserable. “Because this image right here, this is the essence of America. You can be the President of the United States. You can have an entire political party and a global media apparatus at your disposal. You can cow the media and the wealthy into obedience. You can command an army and deploy troops and have unlimited wealth and power. But you still can’t force people to come to your fucking birthday party. And what is more American than that?”
The usually apolitical Jimmy Fallon also didn’t miss the opportunity to dunk on the president on The Tonight Show. “Seriously, it looked like even Trump was bored by his own parade. You know it’s bad when the person who looks most happy to be there is Melania.” Fallon joked, “The White House is now claiming that over 250,000 people attended the parade. Yeah, it was an estimate, give or take 250,000.”
On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart only devoted a few minutes to Trump’s parade, revealing that they originally had more jokes but other terrible events, including the worsening situation in the Middle East, the shocking assassination of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and the sickening behavior of edge lord Utah Senator Mike Lee changed things.
“We were going to come out here [and talk about little Kim Jong Trump and his big military parade/quinceanera and how it meant that we all live in North Korea now,” said Stewart. “And all the hyperbole of this massive display of American military power really butted up against what the parade actually was, which was this,” said Stewart as a clip of the now infamous squeaky tank played on screen.
“Was that tank squeaking?” asked an incredulous Stewart. “We have a trillion-dollar budget for the military. Nobody’s got WD-40? Nobody?” Added Stewart, “This was less a show of overwhelming force and more like a military museum getting in its steps.”
