Following Donald Trump’s chaotic, stock market-devastating announcement Wednesday of massive tariffs experts say are “worse than the worst case scenario,” Stephen Colbert kicked off his monologue by joking that the audience must feel “liberated,” because “America is finally free from the tyranny of being able to buy stuff from other countries.”
“Who’s ready to learn how to make their own iPad from scratch?” COlbert continued. “Watching those kids have all the fun.”
Colbert continued by explaining how the tariffs seem to have been decided on last minute, noting, “reportedly, Trump was still weighing tariff options until late yesterday. Now, if you’re not steeped in the wonky language of beltway insiders, that basically means they were spitballing ideas through the bathroom door at 3am.”
“Tell you what?” Colbert continued, using his Donald Trump impression. “What if Ireland has to pay extra to to be on the Lucky Charms box. What about that? I’m just spitballing here. We stopped Count Chocula at the border.”
Colbert noted that the tariffs would be the strictest since the 1930s Smoot Hawley tariffs, which he noted was “just one of the reasons we remember Herbert Hoover as our greatest president, why they named all those vacuums after him because, because he didn’t suck.”
“Now, worry wart historians believe that the 1930s tariffs were responsible for a two thirds decline in international trade and led to a global depression,” Colbert continued. (This is mostly accurate by the way. The depression had already started when those tariffs were implemented, but they made things far, far worse.)
“Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, but just in case, we should all practice our sad Dust Bowl Migrant Mother pose,” He joked, before making such a pose.
There more of course and you can watch the whole monologue below: