Among the many messages revealed in the Trump administration’s Signal group chat about a military strike on Yemen were a few celebrating the move with just emojis, which deeply disturbed “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver. So, on Sunday’s episode, he sent an emoji message of his own.
In case you missed it, last week, Trump officials accidentally included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg on a group chat discussing what they swear were not classified attack plans. In the planning, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz responded to the plan with the fist, flame and American flag emojis.
Meanwhile, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff responded with the prayer hands, a muscle and two American flag emojis of his own.
“Look, those clearly aren’t the right emojis to send after a bombing because the right emojis are no emojis,” Oliver retorted. “It’s basically like asking which Minion meme is right to send after Dylan’s ex-wife died in a car accident. ‘They weren’t together anymore, were they? But it feels wrong not to send something,’ when the answer is maybe send flowers and not this actual meme of a Minion cheering in a graveyard holding a sign that says, ‘Sorry about your ex-wife.’ That is not the answer.”
Of course, the comedian was not surprised at “the glib response” by these government employees.
“This is something of a motif for this administration: deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things with massively serious consequences,” Oliver said.
He went on to call out Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s “deeply disturbing” video from the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration is sending purported criminals to, often without due process or even proof of a crime.
“The past couple of months have seen this administration operate with incompetence and cruelty, interspersed with the occasional Nazi-adjacent visuals,” Oliver said. “The good news is, they’re facing massive pushback over the mass deportations. The bad news is, they’ve already done a ton of damage.”
“But if they think they can brush off illegally detaining and imprisoning innocent people with the same flippancy they reserve for adding the wrong person to a group chat, they should know in no uncertain terms that the rest of us will push back, hard,” he continued.
To make sure the message really resonated with those it was meant for, Oliver opted to “put it in the language that they seem to prefer” and sent it via emoji.
“Go f–k yourselves, assholes,” he spelled out with the graphics. “Love, America.”
“Last Week Tonight” is now streaming on Max.