‘Damn it!’ Stephen Colbert Mocks Trump For Calling Conflict He Insisted Was ‘Not a War’ a ‘War’

Stephen Colbert mocked President Donald Trump for repeatedly and inadvertently undercutting his own administration’s messaging on Iran by using a single word the White House urged allies to avoid.

On Wednesday night’s episode of The Late Show, Colbert said he “really didn’t want to start the monologue by talking about the war,” but decided to anyway, claiming he “went into” the show “without a plan” in “honor of this administration.”

He continued, “I say war because it sure looks like a war and Trump keeps calling it a war, but Congress never declared it a war and MAGA was promised no new wars.”

The host pointed to a White House memo sent to congressional Republicans instructing the president’s allies not to describe the conflict with Iran as a “war” and to correct reporters who use the terminology by calling the conflict “targeted major combat operations.”

“So it’s worse than a war,” he joked. “It’s a war that got a thesaurus for Christmas. Okay.”

Pretending to continually slip up, Colbert continued, “So, it’s not a war. It’s not a war. Don’t call it a war. Got it. I’m sorry, Mr. President. You were saying?”

He then cut to a clip of Trump referring to the strikes against Iran as a “war” a whopping three times in a minute.

“Oh no. Oh damn it! You know you’re not supposed to say it, but that just puts the word in your brain,” Colbert mocked.

The host compared the slip to trying not to notice an obvious flaw, remarking, “It’s like when your boss has a huge pimple on his nose, and you’re like, ‘Don’t talk about the pimple,’ but as soon as he walks in, you go, ‘Hi, Mr. Pimple!'”

Colbert went on to roast House Speaker Mike Johnson for his “tactic” in describing the “war” as “not our war” by blaming Iran for its counterattacks on U.S. embassies in recent days.

“We’re not at war right now, folks. I totally buy it, babe. She declared sex on me. I simply reciprocated with a targeted heat-seeking moisture missile,” he jibed.

“One thing’s for sure,” Colbert concluded. “This ‘not-a-war’ is not-a-stopping anytime soon.”

Watch above via CBS.

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