Recurring Daily Show host Ronny Chieng found a lot to joke about with the Trump administration’s war-planning group chat accidentally adding a major journalist, but Chieng zeroed in on one especially unprofessional detail:
“If you ask me, adding a reporter wasn’t even the most embarrassing thing to happen on this group chat,” Chieng said in his Tuesday monologue.
He played a news clip showing how National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat in the first place, had been sending messages made up entirely of emojis.
One text, sent after the first strikes on Yemen, simply featured emojis of a fist, the American flag, and fire.
“Is anyone else kind of upset that we’re conducting war by emoji now?” Chieng responded. “I mean, what does this even mean? What, ‘I’m gonna fist the flag and then light it on fire’?”
“There’s a reason why you don’t use emojis for life-and-death situations,” Chieng said. “It’s too open to interpretation, OK?”
He continued, “Imagine if your doctor texted you a crab emoji, all right? And now you’re going, ‘Oh, my God, I have crabs?’ And your doctor has to be like, ‘Lol, no, it’s the astrology sign for cancer.‘”
Chieng showed a few clips of prominent Republicans trying to defend the major security lapse, including one of GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar snapping at CNN anchor Boris Sanchez, telling him, “Boris, I gave you the soundbite already!”
“Boris, I gave you the soundbite!” Chieng mocked. “Stop asking follow-up questions. If I wanted to talk to a journalist, I’d be on a private group chat with Pete Hegseth.”
Chieng found the “everyone makes mistakes” excuse from GOP pundits especially frustrating.
“Come on, what, we’re just calling this a mistake now? Like, look, my door dasher forgetting straws is a mistake ... but this feels like a major f--k-up.”
“They’re acting like nobody will care about this, and honestly, they’re probably right,” Chieng said. “I mean, nothing seems to matter anymore anyway, and everyone will forget this in a few days when Trump sends the new Snow White to Gitmo.”
For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng on The Last Laugh podcast.
