“The Daily Show” host Ronny Chieng is defending Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration for their wild gaffe of sending war plans to a journalist. And by “defending,” we mean ruthlessly and sarcastically mocking them.
On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, revealed that he was accidentally added by Trump advisors to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging service often used by journalists. Those advisors then shared their plans to attack the Houthis in Yemen hours before the first strike happened. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson defended the mistake, saying, “What you did see, I think, was top-level officials doing their job, doing it well, and executing on a plan with precision.”
“Precision? Even your texts weren’t hitting their intended targets,” Chieng said on Tuesday night’s episode. “Forget the Houthis. I’m surprised you didn’t accidentally blow up Hootie and the Blowfish. This is like if your sex tape leaked and you’re like, ‘I’m glad you saw all of it. This proves my d–k works.’”
Chieng also admonished his studio audience for laughing at the Trump administration over this mistake. “Unlike you I have human empathy for these people who are just trying their best to kill other humans,” Chieng said. “I guarantee that if anyone in this audience had their group chats leaked, it would ruin every single one of your lives.”
He also called out people who have said that Hegseth was the one who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat. “It wasn’t even Pete Hegseth who added him. It was some other incompetent guy at the highest levels of government,” Chieng clarified.
Most of the opening monologue was devoted to making fun of the news story. “The Daily Show” even unveiled a new segment entitled “The Worst Wing” for the occasion. But towards the end of the monologue, Chieng’s ribbing got a bit more serious as he pointed to the Trump administration’s explanations for how this mixup happened.
“You can’t use ‘It was a mistake’ and ‘It was fake news.’ You’ve got to pick one,” he said. Watch the full segment in the video above.
