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Late-night hosts mocked the Department of Defense’s contract with Elon Musk’s Grok AI, Donald Trump’s White House decor and Maga infighting over the Epstein files.
Stephen Colbert
“Trump got elected last year by making two promises: racism and bringing down inflation using racism,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. “So far, not so great” as thanks in part to Trump’s tariffs, inflation increased in June to 2.7%. And it could get worse, as Trump announced he would impose a 30% tariff on European goods starting in August.
“No more European goods, so now people will have to settle for European bads,” Colbert joked. “I’m looking at you, toilet with two buttons. Why? I’m just pushing them both!”
The tariffs could raise prices on such items as French cheese, Italian leather goods, German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals. “Spanish pharmaceuticals? But we can’t lose Las Drogas!” Colbert quipped.
In other Washington news, Elon Musk “may officially be out of the White House, but he’s still getting government contracts”, as the defense department announced that it will begin using Grok, Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot. “No! You can’t let evil AI into the department that controls our nukes,” said Colbert. “Haven’t you seen the new Mission: Impossible? Once the entity is inside, the only way to prevent global annihilation is for Tom Cruise to take his shirt off inside a submarine.”
The department’s decision is especially questionable because just last week, Grok went rogue on X, going on antisemitic rants and referring to itself as MechaHitler. “Which must have been particularly upsetting to Elon, because MechaHitler was going to be the name of his next kid,” Colbert quipped.
Grok is not the only AI partnership – the department has also signed deals with OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. “This is such a bad idea,” said Colbert. “So far, the only thing AI has been really consistently good at is producing perfectly crispy homemade french fries with a fraction of the oil – wait, that’s an air fryer. Still waiting on AI.”
The Daily Show
On the Daily Show, guest host Jordan Klepper looked into Maga base uproar over Trump’s refusal to release files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “Why is Donald Trump refusing to release the Epstein files, and telling everyone to shut up and move on?” he wondered.
Klepper proposed the idea of Occam’s razor – that the most simple explanation is probably the correct one. “In the case of Trump and the Epstein files, let’s call our theory ‘Occam’s giant fucking machete’,” he said, given that Trump used to be friends with Epstein and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. “But it’s worth understanding just how close this friendship was,” said Klepper before old footage of Trump with Epstein at a Mar-a-Lago party in the 90s; as they both ogle cheerleaders, Trump points out one who is “hot” and then says something unintelligible to Epstein that makes him double over in laughter.
Epstein himself said Trump was his closest friend for 10 years, and that Trump first slept with Melania on his plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express”.
“Next time you’re on a flight with a crying baby, just think about how much worse it could be,” Klepper joked.
Worse, in a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump said of Epstein: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
“Do you know how creepy you have to be for Donald Trump to pick up on it?” Klepper exclaimed. “That’s a real ‘your drunk friend taking your car keys from you’ moment.”
Klepper offered a parting message to Trump’s inflamed base: “To all the Maga people who are so confused about why Trump doesn’t want to release any of these files, maybe the answer has something to do with Occam’s giant fucking machete.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers opened with a Donald Trump post to Truth Social over the weekend, in which the president claimed he had a “PERFECT administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD”.
“Yeah, that’s not why everyone is talking about it,” said Meyers. “That’s like saying ‘everyone is watching Love Island because it’s so free of controversy.’”
While surveying flood damage in central Texas last week, Trump pointed out Dr Phil in the crowd, saying he was “lookin’ good” – “but it turned out it was just a caterpillar crawling across a ham”, Meyers joked.
Trump has also reportedly added more gold embellishments to the Oval Office. “More gold? Is he the president or the pharaoh?” Meyers joked. “I mean I guess it’s a taste thing, but I don’t think the Oval Office should look like the restroom at the Dubai Ritz Carlton.”
And while explaining some decoration changes to the cabinet room last week, Trump pointed out a portrait of Dwight D Eisenhower, and said the 34th president was “underrated”.
“Don’t worry, I feel like all of them are being rated a bit more highly these days,” Meyers responded.
