The Daily Show had one of those days Thursday when all it had to do to make fun of Trump was read his words back verbatim, thanks to Trump’s freewheeling interview with the New York Times on Wednesday. How could any comedian improve on Trump’s retelling of Napoleon’s Russian campaign?
[Napoleon] did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather?
That’s funny on its own, but Noah easily gets another joke out of it by simply trying, and failing, to restate the president’s meaning in plain English:
It sounds like the president is saying that there was this one specific night where Napoleon could have gone to Russia but he didn’t, and that’s why his troops froze in Russia?
That’s pretty funny, too, but then there’s a third bit taken from the same tortured passage in the interview, a re-enactment in which Napoleon passes on invading Russia because he’s got a cooking class. (They’re making napoleons, naturally, or as Napoleon calls them, “mes.”) With any other accounting of French history, we’d be nearing the point of diminishing returns here, but Trump’s kind of special that way.
But as hilarious as it is that we gave the nuclear codes to a man who couldn’t fake his way through middle school history, it probably will have some downsides. As Noah documents for the millionth time in the segment’s last half, Trump isn’t just spewing nonsensical alternate facts about French history. He’s also a shameless autocrat who sees nothing wrong with admitting he’s mad Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian investigation—he can’t even begin to comprehend why that would be a problem—and he’s still president. Ha ha ha.
