Shortly after Jimmy Kimmel went off on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson for defending Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on the eve of his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Seth Meyers dedicated a sizeable chunk of his Late Night to Trump’s praise of Putin the day before the military offensive.
“The entire world is aghast and horrified,” said Meyers of the imminent Russian invasion, as the show was recorded Wednesday afternoon. “The only people who could possibly think this is a good move are those unemployed fringe weirdos who go on small-time radio shows. You know, like this guy.”
With that, he threw to a clip of Trump speaking on the The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, a conservative talk radio program co-hosted by Travis, a troll-like Fox Sports personality who’s been remarkably wrong about the COVID-19 pandemic every step of the way (and most everything else, really).
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“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius,’” Trump remarked of Putin on Tuesday. “Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine—of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. So, Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’”
Trump later went on to say of Putin, “Here’s a guy who’s very savvy… I know him very well. Very, very well… But here’s a guy that says, you know, ‘I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,’ he used the word ‘independent,’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say, that’s pretty savvy.”
“No, you don’t gotta say that!” exclaimed Meyers. “I mean, well, maybe you gotta say that so someone will pick you up at the Moscow airport when you flee our jurisdiction. It’s just insane that Trump is still so desperate to praise a bloodthirsty tyrant like Putin every chance he gets. Trump narrates Putin’s every move like he’s [NFL commentator] Tony Romo calling the last drive of a playoff game.”
He added, “Trump’s watching Russian tanks roll into Ukraine with pom-poms in his hand, calling it ‘genius.’”
