On Saturday, February 28, 2026, the U.S.-Israeli air force resumed bombing Iran. Among the first reported killed were over 165 people in an Iranian elementary school and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On Monday evening, the late-night television hosts addressed the slaughter.

“My immediate reaction when I saw this on Saturday,” Stephen Colbert said solemnly, “were horror at what was unfolding and, frankly, grief for my beautiful country.” He lectured his audience that “our job as American citizens is to reject violence and violent rhetoric.”

Jon Stewart found it “terrifying and disorienting.” He predicted that “there will be another tragedy in this country, self-inflicted by us, to us. And then we’ll have this feeling again. I remember it on 9/11, this disorienting, holy-shit-stop-the-world-I-would-like-to-get-off feeling.”

“Political violence must be rejected in all its forms,” Seth Meyers, a lesser talent, read aloud with near-sincerity. “We must all condemn it, and repudiate it, and do everything in our power to stop it.”

Just kidding. That was actually in July 2024, after an assassin’s bullet grazed presidential candidate Donald Trump’s ear. The collective Monday-after response to the assassination of Khamenei was trivialization of violence.

The late-night wags found humor in “a massive bombing campaign” launched to murder the 86-year-old Khamenei. “You could have just spilled some water on the kitchen floor,” Colbert joked, “and taken away his life alerts.” Jimmy Kimmel said, “They could have killed him by slamming a door really hard.” The other Jimmy—who, one suspects, couldn’t pick out Iran on a map—suggested throwing a surprise party and popping a balloon.

Rather than doing “everything in our power” to “reject violence,” Meyers and Colbert chuckled about how the massacre of Khamenei’s inner circle had disrupted President Trump’s supposed plans to appoint a new Iranian leader. Meyers equated it with a hot dog eating contest. Colbert likened it to killing small animals, then riffed on war as both a game of tag and compulsive eating.

These gags were, effectively, an endorsement of Trump’s “regime change” offensive. “Fuck that guy,” Stewart said of Khamenei. “We can all agree,” Kimmel insisted, “that the world is a better place without the ayatollah.” Colbert, claiming hard-earned wisdom, wasn’t ready to predict if the “new war” was “going to be a good or going to be a bad.”

All five hosts scored laughs by criticizing Trump—not for ordering mass murder, but for his amateurish public relations. They ridiculed him for repeatedly changing his supposed war rationales, and for blathering on about drapes, and for announcing the onslaught from a jerry-rigged “situation room” in the middle of the night while wearing—ha, ha, ha—a baseball hat.

Please pause to picture this: Writers in Manhattan offices crafting comedy routines about a bombing campaign. Can you hear the smug guffaws? Then picture this: Distraught Iranian parents, that same day, searching the rubble for the remains of their obliterated children. Can you hear the screams?

Now, back to the late-night hilarity.

Kimmel and Stewart offered the usual gotcha clips, such as candidate Trump calling himself a “peacemaker” and promising “no new wars.” Older clips showed Trump predicting that President Obama, “because he’s weak and ineffective,” would start a war against Iran. Speaking of ineffective, a belated congressional vote on war powers, Colbert quipped, would be like putting on a condom after having sex. Stewart likened Congress to male nipples.

Kimmel did manage a serious face, and the obligatory vacuous statement, for six U.S. soldiers killed in Kuwait by Iranian counterattacks. “I hope,” he said, “that we show their families how grateful we are for this sacrifice that they made.” Colbert mouthed concern about “that sacrifice, and any sacrifices to come, any loss of civilian life for that matter.”

This is typical lip service: U.S. soldiers are sanctified, they died for a greater good. The death of foreign civilians is unfortunate, but they’re just statistics. Dead “enemies” aren’t worth mentioning, except as punchlines. See, U.S. war-making isn’t so bad. Goodnight, everybody.

What’s the point in calling out silly talk shows? Isn’t good-natured ribbing of creeps in high places, and Stewart’s performative outrage, the best we can expect from liberal-minded jesters receiving extravagant paychecks from colossal capitalist conglomerates? Why bother picking at such low-hanging fruit?

Answer: Because viewers may mistake their beloved hosts for resistance allies, when, in fact, they are part of the problem.

The devotees of these television shows appear, generally, to be non-Republicans over fifty, with younger non-Republicans accessing clips online. Nielsen and Youtube statistics suggest that, within five days, these war-is-fun monologues had received, collectively, 20 million views. By comparison, the No Kings Day protests, in October 2025, reportedly drew around 6 million participants.

Safe to say, then, the late-night audience includes millions of people who bemoan Trump fascism but don’t participate in public protests. The political landscape would change for the better, perhaps dramatically, if this sizeable group shifted from passive opposition to active resistance. (A note to organizers: This might require old-fashioned, house-to-house canvassing, not just group emails.)

But Stewart, Colbert, and the others promote passivity. Like Netflix vigilante fantasies, they provide temporary emotional satisfaction. Like biennial voting, they give a false sense of political engagement. A few moments of righteous indignation over criminality and cowardice in Washington D.C.—I wish they would all just go away, I’m so tired of this, poor me!—then some cathartic laughs over the dishonesty and boorishness—what a bunch of idiots, at least I’m on the right side!—and your civic duty is fulfilled. For a certain demographic, late-night comedy is the oxycodone of the people.

Stewart finished his monologue on a note of helplessness: “All this parsing is meaningless in the first place. We can expose the hypocrisy and contradictions and arrogance till we’re blue in the Congress.” He affirmed his audience’s compliance: “We’re all just along for the ride…at the whims of Donald Trump.” Then he demonstrated the appropriate self-pitying response to slaughter in faraway Iran: “You know what I need right now? My comfort monkey.” He hugged a stuffed toy.

“Awwwwww,” the audience cooed and applauded.

Stewart assured them, “It actually works.”

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