Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah did a deep dive into the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday evening, and praised the mettle of the Ukrainian resistance that has reportedly surprised and stymied the Russian military. “Everyone around the world has been inspired by the resistance that they’ve put up so far, and their ability to tell Russia to go fuck itself in so many different ways,” the Daily Show host explained.
There are two sides to the Russian-Ukrainian war… and both are telling Putin to go f**k himself. pic.twitter.com/t3mNGmu7XR
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 2, 2022
“Despite the overwhelming odds, you have to respect the fight, man!” he continued following several defiant, profanity-filled clips of Ukrainian civilians. “You have to respect the fight that the Ukrainian people are putting up. Civilians are grabbing shotguns. Farmers are towing tanks. Like, one thing we’re learning from this war is if you’re going to invade a country, maybe don’t pick the one where the grandmas don’t know how to turn their knitting into a firebomb.
“But as brave as these people are, everyone is still terrified about the potential outcome of this war,” he added. “And that’s mainly because the madman who has launched it is really, really, really unpredictable.”
Noah pointed to intelligence reports that Vladimir Putin is isolated both socially and geographically, that the only people talking to him are sycophants feeding his resentments, and that he grown increasingly hostile and frustrated.
The reports mark a departure from Putin’s usual emotionless stance, what Noah described as a “weird combination of being super calm and super dangerous” and compared to a “cobra who took too many edibles”.
“It makes complete sense that he’s lashing out now,” Noah remarked. “Remember this: Putin doesn’t know what it’s like to lose. He wins every re-election without campaigning. He wins judo matches against world champions. Now suddenly he’s having trouble beating a country that’s a fraction the size of his? No wonder he’s mad.”
Stephen Colbert
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired live following Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, which the host described as “a rollercoaster ride of rip-roaring reasonableness!
“Right now, there is a dictator who thinks he can violently conquer a sovereign democracy, but Joe Biden beat him in the last election,” Colbert riffed. “And now, the world is facing another one who’s rolling tanks into Ukraine.”
Many in attendance of the speech wore blue and yellow to show support for Ukraine – “a show of solidarity not seen since the last Minions movie”, Colbert joked.
Biden led Congress in a symbolic standing ovation for Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, who attended the speech as a guest of the first lady, Jill Biden.
“It was a moving moment of bipartisan unity,” said Colbert of the gesture, “especially considering the last time Congress stood up that fast together, they were the ones fleeing a fascist invasion.”
Biden also announced the US would close its airspace to all Russian flights, a move meant to also target the country’s oligarchs. “Boom! Now Russians will be stuck at their airports eating Cinna-borscht,” said Colbert. “But I tell you, if you really want to punish Russia, you’d divert all their flights to Newark.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel bemoaned the state of the union and international affairs. Biden “probably could’ve just saved himself some time and just tweeted that the State of the Union is ‘malarkey AF’”, he joked.
“The state of our union is about as strong as Kim and Kanye right now,” Kimmel added, noting that “not every lawmaker showed up to watch the speech, which is not the usual.”
The Florida senator Marco Rubio refused to attend because he declined to take the required Covid test. “I don’t have time to go take a Covid test today,” Rubio complained earlier on Tuesday. “I only take a test if I’m sick.”
“Which, since you can have and spread Covid without any symptoms, is an incredibly stupid thing to say,” Kimmel responded. “But, in fairness, that is what Marco Rubio does. He is very on-brand.
“You know why he won’t do it, right? You know why he won’t take it? Because if they swab his nose, it would probably test positive for Donald Trump’s butt.”
And in other news, the international judo federation suspended Putin as its honorary president in response to the invasion of Ukraine, and Putin was also stripped of his honorary black belt in taekwondo. “Apparently, invading a peaceful country is a taekwon-don’t,” Kimmel quipped.
