Late night hosts aren't exactly baffled by Trump's Confederate sympathizing

Late Night hosts on Trump&#039;s Confederate sympathies

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Daily Show, The Late Show, Late Night)

published 12 June 2020

"Protests are continuing all over America, and if that makes you nervous, you might be a Confederate statue, because fans of the Union are tearing down these monuments all across the South," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show. Even "NASCAR's getting more progressive," banning the Confederate battle flag, he said. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised — all they do is turn left."

The U.S. Army also says it's open to renaming bases named after Confederate leaders, who, after all, "waged war on the U.S. miliary," Colbert noted. But President Trump said no, and maybe "it's not surprising that Trump's okay with naming things after old racist guys — he did name his own son Donald Trump." Still, he didn't think Trump knew enough about U.S. history to purposefully schedule his next rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth. Stephen Miller, on the other hand....

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"So more than 150 years after the Civil War, the winning side is finally deciding it doesn't need to keep celebrating the side that tried to destroy them," The Daily Show's Trevor Noah applauded. Well, except Trump. Maybe he won't rename Army bases "because he's trying to appeal to his Confederate-loving base," Noah said, but "just take a second and imagine being a black soldier training at a base that is named after somebody who didn't even think of you as a human being. That isn't just offensive to those soldiers — it's offensive to the Confederate generals, too. Because I mean, imagine if they came back and saw what was happening at a base that is named after them. 'My God, all of the slaves have guns!'"

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.