On Wednesday’s episode of “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Seth Meyers spent the night’s “A Closer Look” segment examining the seemingly nonsensical approach Donald Trump has taken to foreign policy, focusing largely on the situation with North Korea and French president Emmanuel Macron’s visit this week.
Meyers also had thoughts related to these topics on Trump’s bizarre hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser.
“If Trump and South Korea do indeed to manage to resolve the North Korea situation, that would absolutely be a fantastic thing, but the worry is that he’s not prepared for this meeting. And if diplomacy fails, he’ll go the route favored by his hawkish new national security adviser, John Bolton. John Bolton has openly disagreed with Trump’s approach and advocated a preemptive strike on North Korea. Bolton has even gone on Fox News and repeatedly thrown cold water on the idea of a meeting with Kim Jong-un,” Meyers said.
“Late Night” then played a clip of Bolton saying that talking to North Korea is not just a waste of time, but will actually make things worse because it will give North Korea time to make more weapons of mass destruction. “We had fooled around with North Korea for 25 years and fooling around some more is just going to make matters worse,” Bolton said.
“Why would you hire as your national security adviser a guy who completely disagrees with your biggest national security policy? Is it because you thought he was Colonel Sanders?” Meyers asked as he slipped into a Trump impersonation. “‘I want him! Get me him! I am so — it is such — such an honor to meet you. I love your chicken. I save what I don’t eat in the fridge. And then when I’m hungry again I nuke it. Oh, nuke it. That gives me an idea.’ ”
Getting serious for a moment, Meyers suggested an idea for why it is that Trump is so erratic on this topic.
“Now the reason why Trump has been complimenting Kim Jong-un is that he doesn’t actually have a discernible foreign policy, he just has relationships. If you’re nice to him, he’s nice to you,” Meyers said. “Which is why French president Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington this week has been so weird, featuring everything from planting trees to long awkward handshakes to weird side hugs to more handshakes to brushing dandruff off Macron’s suit to literally holding hands as they walk around the White House.
“Look at how happy he is! Look at him! That is a man that is so desperate for human contact. He can’t believe someone is letting him touch them without slapping his hand away. He’s like a fifth grader on a playdate. ‘Oh, quick, come downstairs! I have a sword!’ ”
You can watch all of the “A Closer Look” segment from Wednesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in the video embedded at the top of this post.