After Friday's terrorist attack by a white supremacist on two mosques in New Zealand, President Trump phoned his condolences to New Zealand's prime minister, but expressing "sympathy and love for all Muslim communities," as she asked, is "not really Trump's brand," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. "On the one hand, after a terror attack, to condemn the extremist ideology of the terrorist should be a slam dunk. On the other hand, he can't jump. Also, he never, ever condemns the racists."
Colbert listed some of Trump's past words and actions. "I'm just saying if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then why does it goose-stepping?" he asked. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney spent much of Sunday on TV insisting Trump is not a white supremacist, saying at one point, "I don't think anybody could say that the president is anti-Muslim." Colbert accepted the challenge: "The president is anti-Muslim. What did I win?"
"The president is anti-Muslim — yep, that was not hard at all," Seth Meyers agreed on Late Night. "Trump's aides have been trying to memory-hole his long history of racism and Islamophobia," but "asking Trump if he sees white nationalism as a threat is like asking Joe Camel if he sees tobacco as a threat." He also agreed with George Conway's diagnosis of Trump's weekend tweets, saying they "would make more sense if they were scribbled on the wall of a psych ward."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah said he doesn't blame Trump for the New Zealand shooting, exactly. Just like "I don't think you can pin any one storm on directly on climate change," he said, "I don't think he's the cause of any of these things, but he does in some ways raise the temperature enough that we'll see more of these things happening." And Trump and the New Zealand shooter "are products of the same white supremacy, they believe the same things," Noah said. Watch below. Peter Weber
-
September 14 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include RFK Jr on the hook, the destruction of discourse, and more
-
Air strikes in the Caribbean: Trump’s murky narco-warTalking Point Drug cartels ‘don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules’, but US military air strikes on speedboats rely on strained interpretation of ‘invasion’
-
A tour of Sri Lanka’s beautiful northThe Week Recommends ‘Less frenetic’ than the south, this region is full of beautiful wildlife, historical sites and resorts
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
-
Charlamagne Tha God irks Trump with Epstein talkSpeed Read The radio host said the Jeffrey Epstein scandal could help 'traditional conservatives' take back the Republican Party
-
CBS cancels Colbert's 'Late Show'Speed Read 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is ending next year
-
A long weekend in ZürichThe Week Recommends The vibrant Swiss city is far more than just a banking hub
-
Shakespeare not an absent spouse, study proposesspeed read A letter fragment suggests that the Shakespeares lived together all along, says scholar Matthew Steggle
