Shutdown Eve | Hegseth To America’s Enemies: FAFO | Trump To Military Brass: Fight The Enemy Within

The crowd settles as Stephen Colbert takes the stage.

Stephen:
Welcome one and all to The Late Show. I’m your host, Stephen Colbert.

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Ladies and gentlemen, folks—you know this, I’m sure you know this. With Donald Trump as president, there are days that make you go “whoa.” And there are days that make you go, “Oh my god.” And then there are days that make you go, “Whoa, my god.”

Today was one of those days. In fact, the lighthearted story to start our monologue tonight is that it looks like the federal government, which is entirely controlled by the Republican party, is going to shut down in about 20 minutes.
Let me know if anything changes, okay? If so, it will cut a lot of important services and put a lot of people out of work, but not everyone. Air traffic controllers and most TSA employees are considered essential workers and have to stay on the job—even if that means working without pay. Which is perfect for anyone who’s ever said, “I just wish this TSA worker groping my junk was also angry.”

Now, the darker story this evening involves Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Today, Hegseth gathered our top generals down to Quantico for an unusual speech. Here’s how one military analyst described it.
I like the new uniforms. Here’s what happened:

Last Thursday, Hegseth called hundreds of generals and admirals from all over the world from their very important jobs in for a meeting in Virginia. The event was live-streamed, but Hegseth was dead set on getting everyone in the same room. According to one source, it’s meant to be an “eyeball to eyeball” kind of conversation. He wants to see the generals.

Okay, that’s it. The male loneliness epidemic has gone too far. Join a bowling league for Pete’s sake.

Once the meeting started, Hegseth emphasized that our leaders needed a hyper-serious, no-nonsense approach to war-fighting. Take a look.

[Clip error]
Sorry, wrong tape. That’s actually Hegseth slamming his nards with a skateboard when he hosted a weekend morning show this year. Still more dignified than what he did today, because in the actual speech, Hegseth went full five-star douche and at one point pegged the camera with what he was sure was going to be an applause line:
“Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the war department. In other words, to our enemies: FA FO.”

Oh. Oh, no.
I know that feeling. I’ve been there. When you think it’s going to land, that quiet crowd really hurts.
It happens to a lot of people. Reminds me of when Queen played Wembley.

[Music & Applause]

Hegseth went all-in on what he calls his “warrior ethos.”
“Today is another liberation day. The liberation of America’s warriors in name, in deed, and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living.”

I’ll say it—the Democrats have got to turn down the temperature on their violent rhetoric.

Now, I know.
Hey.
These guys are great. Thank you.

SECDEF gathered our most important generals for a good reason. And one day we’ll find out what that was, because mostly he said stuff like this:
“No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that.”

Whoa. Gosh, did you hear that, five-star generals? Pete did a swear. He is cool, you know. I hear he has like ten Playboys under his mattress. It’s awfully lumpy.

For Pete, it’s all about plain-spoken, shoot-from-the-hip, man-guy doing. We just have to be honest. We have to say with our mouths what we see with our eyes, just tell it like it is in plain English, point out the obvious things right in front of us.

Okay. You suck monkey butt.
It’s obvious.

A big part of Hegseth’s warrior ethos is about image.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations—or really any formation—and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon. It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the Secretary of War can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.”

Damn straight. In fact, let’s see Pete do some of his regular PT.
[Skateboard Academy]
Technically, in that case, PT stands for “pound testicle.” And I will say this for Hegseth: he never skips nut day.

Then it was time for the officers to hear from a true paragon of masculine fitness—Donald Trump.
Fat generals? No.
Fat Generals, meet Captain Cackles.

By the way, I don’t know if you noticed how he was walking there, but that shamble up to the mic was about as high as his energy got for the whole day. The president is so anti-woke, he’s barely conscious.

He loves a rally crowd, though.
He loves a rally crowd. But traditionally, the senior leadership of the US military never claps for political speeches. That’s the tradition. They’re supposed to be nonpartisan and sit there stone-faced. It’s like doing standup for Easter Island heads.

So Trump didn’t love the crowd.
“I’ve never walked into a room so silent before. You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room.”

Roger that.

I know what you’re saying:
“Steve, Trump may have no sense of discipline or decorum, but at least he didn’t assemble every general in the world to bring up the n-word. There’s that to hold on to, right?”

Wrong.

Here he is talking about the nuclear:
“We can’t let people throw around that word. I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”

Yep. That’s right, folks. There’s two n-words. One you can never use and the other you can only use if you’re doing karaoke.
[Applause]
“She take me money…”

That’s my impression of Trump doing his impression of Jamie Foxx doing his impression of Ray Charles. Thank you very much.

Trump talked about how America is respected again.
“We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every day the guy’s falling downstairs. I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs. I walk very slowly. You don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don’t bop down the stairs. So, one thing with Obama—I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen pop.”

What the hell are you talking about, Obama?
Can we see footage of Obama going down the stairs?
Okay, I stand corrected. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

Of course, when you call in generals from every corner of the world, you don’t just talk about stairs. You talk about office supplies.
“When I have a general and I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper, I said, ‘Throw a little more gold on it. They deserve it. I want to use the big beautiful firm paper.’”

What? What is—And why is the paper like this? What is—I don’t understand. What paper?
Can we see the big beautiful firm paper he’s talking about?
There you go.
Okay, that makes sense.

We’ll be right back.

Trump then turned his attention to modernizing the Navy.
“Those ships. Some people would say, ‘No, that’s old technology.’ I don’t think it’s old technology. When you look at those guns, but it’s something we’re actually considering—the concept of battleship. Battleship. We’re also considering the concept of Twister. The notion of Hungry Hungry Hippo and of course Yahtzee—or in my case, NeoYahtzee.”

So far, so nuts. But Trump also went very dark at times, warning the military brass about America’s number one enemy—Americans.
“Last month I signed an executive order to provide training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”

A quick reaction force to handle the enemy within? How would we even know who that enemy is?
Do we expect them to just come out and identify themselves?
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”

I guess so.

We’ve got a great show for you tonight. Grammy award-winning artist Sam Smith is here. But when we come back, it’s our friend Jimmy Kimmel. Stick around.