CNN host Anderson Cooper poked at President Donald Trump and his gang’s approach to the Iran war on “The Late Show” Thursday. But the insult nobody laughed at might have been the best. (Watch the video below.)
In a lively conversation with host Stephen Colbert, Cooper questioned Trump’s attempt to quickly hammer out a deal to shut down Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Cooper said experts have told him that such agreements require months, including the one former President Barack Obama forged with Iran (and which Trump pulled out of).
“There’s a lot of details you gotta work out,” Cooper said. “You can’t just kind of do it on the fly on a golf course.”
The passing remark didn’t get a laugh, but taxpayers and others probably don’t find it funny that by late March, the president had already logged his 56th visit to his course in West Palm Beach and 110 days of golfing in his second term. That put his links bill for taxpayers on course for $300 million. His habit has gone unabated amid the war he created, which has put lives and the economy at risk.
Cooper said one of the biggest problems with the administration’s strategy against Iran is that “it’s unclear what the metrics really are for success.”
“People talk about the fog of war,” Cooper said, referring to the confusion that soldiers can face in battle.
“Rarely does that fog emanate from a giant machine at the White House,” he zinged.
Colbert praised the military’s work and said the troops deserve to know the goals. The comedian pointed out that Trump has claimed victory multiple times.
“So technically this is the fog of peace,” Colbert joked to laughter.
Cooper also piled on to the ridicule of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for appearing to pass off lines from “Pulp Fiction” as scripture. Cooper called him “Secretary Samuel Jackson,” referring to the actor who uttered the lines in Director Quentin Tarantino’s classic film.