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Amid seemingly politically-motivated assassinations at home and a fast-spiraling war in the Middle East, there was at least one extremely funny — but also, in its way, extremely grim — display of government ridiculousness for late-night television to sink its teeth into: Donald Trump’s goofy-as-hell military parade/birthday party.
The astoundingly expensive endeavor (paid for by your tax dollars) was nominally meant to commemorate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army, but just so happened to coincide with Trump’s own birthday, June 14. It was the biggest military parade in the U.S. in decades and featured a procession of troops and high-grade military hardware — from squeaky tanks to robot dogs — and was exceptionally boring.
“It was a $50 million version of when a five-year-old shows you every car in his Hot Wheels collection,” Jimmy Kimmel cracked. “We paid for most of it, but [Trump] brought in some corporate sponsors, including the UFC, a crypto company, and ScottsMiracle-Gro, which is the product Trump uses on his head. There were flyovers, there were combovers, the whole thing!
Over on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart joked that, before the real insanity of this past weekend unfolded, they were going to spend much of Monday’s show talking about “little Kim Jong-Trump and his big military parade/quinceañera.” And how the planned spectacle wound up paling in comparison to the reality of a large tank squeakily plodding past largely empty grandstands.
“Was that tank squeaking?” Stewart asked incredulously. “We have a trillion dollar budget for the military and nobody’s got WD-40?! … This was less a show of overwhelming force, and more like a military museum getting in its steps.”
Even Trump seemed bored by the whole thing, with Jimmy Fallon sharing a clip on The Tonight Show of the president vacantly staring at the proceedings and joking, “You know it’s bad when the person who looks most happy to be there is Melania. Trump was dozing off at his parade. If it wasn’t for the squeaky tank, he would’ve been in REM sleep.”
Many of the hosts also pointed out the glaring differences between Trump’s sparsely attended parade and the “No Kings” protests that took place across the country. During Late Night, Seth Meyers highlighted the giant “No King!” formation that protesters organized themselves into on a beach in San Francisco.
“That’s why you don’t piss off a city that’s amazing at graphic design,” Meyers cracked. “I’m sorry, but human beings making words that tight is like 50 times more impressive to me than robot dogs. And, look, I know in the end robot dogs win. It might not be tonight, it might not be tomorrow, but at some point, I’m gonna go to the door to get my UberEats and it’s going to be a robot dog. And he’s going to say something like, ‘Take a closer look at deez nuts,’ before it shoots a laser through my brain. But for today, shout out to human beings!”
