Neil deGrasse Tyson would not like Stephen Miller to greet an alien race on behalf of humans.
The astrophysicist joined The Daily Show on Wednesday night to promote his new book, Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter.
Co-host Jordan Klepper picked Tyson’s brain about the White House’s UFO file dump before shocking Tyson into a laughing fit with a photo of the face of Donald Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff, 40, who Tyson said reminded him of an alien in disguise from 1997’s Men in Black.
“I want to talk to you about these UFO files from the Pentagon,” Klepper said. “Did you see anything of interest there?”
“It’s all of interest,” Tyson said, but “Just to be clear, there’s a difference between what was once secret and what you might otherwise call a cover-up. Obviously, the military keeps secrets. That’s not something new or weird. So, many of these files were previously secret, and now they’re released, and they pretty much match, in spirit, the testimonies we’ve seen in front of Congress from 2023 to 2024.”
“Three years of testimony, sworn testimony from insiders, whistleblowers, from intelligence agencies, from the military, basically telling us everything we see in these files,” Tyson continued, “So, I was not surprised by it.”
What did surprise Tyson, however, was one of several “pictures of aliens” Klepper had hidden behind his desk to ask him about.
“I have some pictures... I want your take on what it says about us as humans,” Klepper said, showing Tyson baby Yoda and the giant alien from the Amy Adams alien movie Arrival.
The next photo sent Tyson into an instant laughing fit, as it was a photo of Miller, sporting his usual surly expression. “Can you explain this one to me?” Klepper said.
“Whoa!” Tyson shouted as he laughed, and then compared him to the alien-possessed humans in Men in Black.
“Do you remember Men in Black?” Tyson asked, “They had the wall where they’re tracking all the aliens on Earth. And you recognize these people, but they all look just a little different,” he said, describing what Miller’s face reminds him of. “They were the aliens on Earth just posing as humans until they would be discovered.”
Asked directly whether he thinks the Trump administration fits the description, Tyson said, focusing on Miller, “I would prefer if he smiled every now and then, you know, ‘cause I don’t know. I like happiness. It looks like he’s angry. And odd. Because they’re all in charge. If you’re in charge, what could you be angry about?” he concluded.
