Late Night Blasts Trump’s ‘Stupidly Bad’ Tariff War ‘For No F–king Reason’ with Canada and Mexico

“This shows you how much time’s have changed. Before Trump, this would have been our whole monologue,” Kimmel said. “Now, it’s like the ninth craziest thing that happened this weekend.”

He and his fellow late-night hosts, including Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon, tried to make some semblance of sense with all that’s been going on in Washington since last week, with continuing attacks on DEI, a sudden trade war looming, and Elon Musk gaining access to sensitive information.

“I thought you were just going to lower the cost of eggs,” said Meyers during his “A Closer Look” segment. “What is all this other s–t?”

Meyers was definitely not a fan of how busy Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency has been, saying that, “While Trump is threatening trade wars abroad, he’s letting the real president, Elon Musk, root around in government computer systems and basically eliminate whatever he doesn’t like.”

The Late Night host also too note of Musk’s purported team of six engineers, who he says are aged 19 to 24, helping him to gain access to the nation’s financial systems used to pay out things like Social Security.

“I gotta say, it’s not great that all of our sensitive government information is in the hands of guys who can be bribed with tacos and sideboob,” Meyers quipped.

Over on The Daily Show, Stewart talked about how part of what Trump is having Musk and his team do is scrub all DEI programs and initiatives from government websites

“It’s a strange fight to pick, with Stewart noting that Musk and Pete Hegseth and basically all of Trump’s team “are themselves DEI for one particular identity that they possess, the ass-kisser. DEI: D–k-sucking ego inflation.”

As quickly as the late-night shows were writing their material, Trump was aborting his massively controversial tariff plans — or at least offering 30-day delays on the 25% tariffs he implemented on Saturday for Mexico and Canada.

But why is he picking a fight with America’s neighbors and closest allies? “No f–king reason whatsoever,” argues Meyers.

He did share that Trump argued that “without the US subsidizing Canada, the country would cease to exist,” when he suggested the United States’ northern neighbor become the 51st state. “I gotta say I’m shocked that he knows how many states there are,” Meyers joked.

The biggest argument Trump made was to say it was important for Canada and Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States, claiming that they didn’t stop it, so we did, and now they need to.

“If we stopped it, why do you want them to stop it?” Meyers asked. “How do they stop a thing you already stopped?”

Stewart couldn’t believe targeting Canada with tariffs, in particular. “We’re picking a fight with our our most reliable and pleasant friend, the labradoodle of allies?” he asked.

Saying this proves that America is a “terrible friend,” he also questioned or choice of foes here. “We used to fight the Nazis. Now we’re scouring the world for easy marks,” he lamented. “What are we, the Jake Paul of nations?”

Even Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show noted the question marks around Trump starting a trade war with the nation’s closest allies, to which he responded in his Trump impression, “I didn’t say anything about Russia and North Korea.”

Fallon continued, “It’s a strange fight to pick. I mean, China, okay, but Canada and Mexico? Maybe it’s the New Yorker in me, but the last people you want to upset are your upstairs and downstairs neighbors.”

Over on The Late Show, Colbert also made the neighbor analogy, suggesting Trump’s trade war is akin to going next door and saying, “‘Hi, I just moved in next door. Gimme your wifi password or I’m gonna poop on your dog.’

On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host marveled at footage of Canadian fans booing the American national anthem in response to the harsh tariffs, which Trump delayed 30 days after two phone calls with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday.

“He’s been in office two weeks, he’s already made Canada,” Kimmel said, “The nicest people in the world are pissed off at us!”

Kimmel noted the Washington Post calling it “The Dumbest Trade War in History,” but had a counter to that.

“It’s not dumb. What it is is fake. He is pretending to issue tariffs so that Canada and Mexico can pretend to bend over for him and then he’ll look like he’s the big hero,” he said, comparing the move to professional wrestling.

Many of the hosts took note of Trump using a confusing phrase in his statement about the tariffs when he wrote, “Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not!).”

“Pretty sure he stole that from his wedding vows,” quipped Colbert, while Fallon joked, “It’s comforting to know he’s being advised by a Magic 8 Ball.”

The good news is that both tariffs were almost immediately delayed, with Stewart breathing a sigh of relief. “Self-inflicted crisis averted,” he said, adding, “Of course it makes sense to wrap up the trade war right now so that we as a country can focus on the biggest thing that’s weakening our great nation.”

As Trump and his administration are doing everything they can to remove DEI from the White House, the federal government and even the lexicon, Stewart said, “MAGA world’s blamed this scourge for everything from the fires in California to the attack on Bourbon Street to inflation to the Baltimore bridge collapse to why your children are confused about the race of mermaids.”

The administration’s latest thing to blame DEI on was the deadly Washington D.C. plane crash, with Trump almost immediately throwing out the acronym as a possible culprit.

“These guys would have you believe that the main problem is that standards were somehow lowered to make sure that a Black person or a gay person gets the chance to land your plane, even though the requirements to become an air traffic controller are the same,” Stewart argued.

He argued that by weaponizing DEI in this manner, Trump and his cohorts are trying to “make the default setting on competence in America a white guy. That’s what this is, a reset to the factory default.”

Kimmel agreed, marveling that anyone could consider as a contributing factor to the crash “that the pilot has a certain skin color.”

He then shared a clip of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt trying to field questions on this notion of tying DEI to the crash.

When asked if DEI being a contributing factor means that there are people who did not earn their positions based on merit flying airplanes and working in air traffic control means that flying isn’t as safe as previously thought, Leavitt pushed back that it’s still completely safe.

“Let me see if I have this right,” Kimmel responded to that. “The system is broken, everyone in it is grossly incompetent, but there couldn’t be a safer time to fly?”

“You know how sometimes a town will elect a dog to be their mayor? Feels like we did that with the whole country,” he added.

Colbert summed up the exhausting pace of the Trump administration’s first two weeks, saying, “Donald Trump is doing so many stupidly bad things so badly stupidly that it’s difficult to keep up. Anyone who’s ever had a toddler knows this feeling … when you ask who gave the dog a haircut with safety scissors, your kid says, ‘It was DEI.'”