Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Amber Ruffin judge Trump less of a Churchill, more 'dictator fanboy'

The Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd was charged with second-degree murder Wednesday and his three colleagues were charged with accessory to murder, "so activism works, justice is possible, easy-peasy, hold-protests-for-nine-days-straight-in-380-American-cities squeezy," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. But President Trump is proving that, like many people feared, he's "a dictator fanboy," and "now we're teetering dangerously close to Trump making his dreams our nightmare" in the streets of Washington D.C.

Colbert revisited Trump's gassing of protesters so he could have a photo op at St. John's Church. "Apparently, Trump went medieval on the protesters in part because he was upset — humiliated, really — about the TV people revealing that he hid in a bunker over the weekend," Colbert said. But Trump told Fox News Radio's Brian Kilmeade that he had just gone down to the bunker "for a tiny, little, short period of time" mostly for "an inspection." He laughed.

"So, just how crazy are things right now? An anonymous source in the administration felt the need to push back on reports that Trump wanted to use tanks against the protesters," and it wasn't a very convincing pushback, Colbert said. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley are also "getting criticism for his fascist photo op" and helping erode the "U.S. armed forces' proud tradition of remaining out of politics to emphasize civilian control of the military," he said. "It reminds me of the old joke: Why did the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs cross the road? Because the president is a chicken."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

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.

Sign up

"Our president is still getting his Bible thumped for that embarrassing photo session at St. John's Church on Monday," and "the White House today tried to explain why the orange chicken crossed the road," Jimmy Kimmel laughed. "Like Churchill? When Churchill said 'we shall fight them on the streets,' he wasn't talking about his own people!" Trump insisted "people" loved his church photo op, but "you have a problem when even the 600-year-old host of the 700 Club is not impressed," he said. "Trump's chief of staff said it was Ivanka's idea, and as a result Ivanka has been demoted to Eric."

Republican senators did not, generally speaking, join the criticism, The Late Show illustrated.

Late Night's Amber Ruffin unloaded on police violence against protesters in a "minute(s) of fury," and you can watch that below. Peter Weber