Colbert on Trump’s shifting tone on Iran: ‘It’s a military strategy known as starting a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle’
Late-night hosts touched on soaring oil prices from Donald Trump’s war in Iran as he backs down from solving the crisis in the strait of Hormuz.Stephen Colbert opened Tuesday’s monologue with an acknowledgment that for the first time since 2022, gas prices have soared to more than $4 a gallon.“I mean, who could’ve seen this coming? Just two days ago gas was a reasonable $3.98,” the Late Show host quipped.“Yesterday it was $3.
99.And suddenly out of nowhere it’s $4! There’s no knowing what the price could be tomorrow!”Still, jokes aside, “this is a big change for consumers”, Colbert said, as the price for a gallon of gas was $3 just a month ago.“Now obviously we know what happened in the past month to raise prices: ABC cancelled The Bachelorette,” Colbert joked.“And in response, Trump attacked Iran.I think that’s why? And the fact that Trump is ruining everything all the time has not helped his popularity.
”Colbert cited a new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll which found that Trump’s approval rating had sunk to a dismal 33%.“One-third.That’s only one out of every three people,” he reiterated.“To put that into perspective, turn to your right, now turn to your left.Both of those people are more popular than Donald Trump.
”Other polls have found that nearly half of Americans “strongly disapprove” of the president, while 22% still “strongly approve”,“Who are you?!” Colbert wondered, imagining their reasoning: “I want gas to be expensive, I want the Kennedy Center blown up, and I know this is a pipe dream, but is there any way we could maybe, maybe, get Denmark to hate us? Because I would just love it if the price of liquorice went up, too,”But speaking of Iran, Trump “seems to be changing his tune” on the war he started, signaling he’s willing to end military operations without reopening the crucial strait of Hormuz because administration officials indicated that such an operation would push the conflict beyond his self-imposed timeline of four to six weeks,“So he’s just walking away from the disaster he created because it’s too complicated,” Colbert said,“It’s a military strategy known as starting a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
”On Truth Social, Trump encouraged allies to take the strait of Hormuz themselves – a strategy Colbert called “the hard part is done, now go do the harder part” – and threatened to blow up electricity plants and other infrastructure targets “which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’,” he wrote.“OK, first off, someone who’s mentioned in the Epstein files over 38,000 times should not put quotes around the word ‘touched’,” Colbert said.And “deliberately blowing up infrastructure could constitute a war crime.But at this point, I think Trump is hoping for the crime Egot.Which of course is: war crime, financial crime, sex crime and Grammy.
”And on the Daily Show, Desi Lydic checked in on Kristi Noem, “former secretary of homeland security and the inciting incident in All Dogs Go to Heaven”.Noem “has had a bad time recently – she lost her job, we found out about her affair and how it happened on a taxpayer-funded fuck plane.She really needs to just lay low and stay out of the headlines.I’m sorry, what’s that?”That would be tabloid reports that Noem’s husband, Bryon Noem, cross-dressed in chats online with fetish models, in direct contradiction with the Maga fixation on gender binaries.“I can’t believe that the lady banging her employee on a fuck plane is the less messy one in their marriage,” Lydic quipped.
“You know what? You live your truth, Bryon.Oh, she can dress up but you can’t? Fuck that,” Lydic added next to photos of Kristi Noem in numerous Americana law enforcement drag while parading around as homeland security chief.“If she had an affair, you have a free pass.You can do whatever you want.I support you and your beautiful, lazy-eyed balloon nipples,” she said before showing a photo, published by the Daily Mail, of Bryon Noem wearing large chest padding.
Lydic then touched on the rising gas prices thanks to Trump’s war in Iran.“Oil prices won’t come down until the strait of Hormuz is as open as Kristi Noem’s marriage,” she quipped.“President Trump, it was your stupid war that closed it in the first place.Do you have any suggestions for how to open it back up?”On Truth Social, Trump blamed the crisis on European allies for not joining the war, goading governments worried about fuel prices to “go get your own oil” by force from the Gulf – comments that sent oil prices even higher.“So just to get this straight: you started a war that caused the strait of Hormuz to be closed, and now you want someone else to figure out how to open it?” Lydic marveled.
“It’s the Middle East, it’s not a toilet in the second floor office bathroom.If you clogged it, it’s your job to unclog it.Unless no one saw you go in, and then you blame it on Michael Kosta.”
Rising star ‘Wreck-It Will’ Sherman has roots in US rugby’s past and eyes on its future
Will Sherman may be the future of US rugby, but his roots are in the game’s American past. The 22-year-old standout second-row forward for Anthem Rugby Carolina in Major League Rugby is the son of Wade Sherman, a member of a champion Cal Berkeley team that included Mark Bingham, who on 11 September 2001 was one of the Flight 93 passengers who fought their hijackers and kept it from reaching Washington.“There was a super old photo that my dad pulled up, and the first time I heard that story was from him,” Sherman said. “He was like, ‘That guy standing to my left is an American hero.’”Sherman “loves telling the story” of how his dad found rugby – which after all is the reason he found it too
NCAA women’s Final Four: UCLA 51-44 Texas; South Carolina 62-48 UConn – as it happened
On paper, South Carolina would be favored in the final. They beat an unbeaten and nearly unbeatable team convincingly. But as we’ve seen tonight, when you get the very best teams together in a competitive cauldron, what bubbles to the surface remains to be seen.Until then …Last bit on Auriemma – in the postgame interviews, Auriemma said he doesn’t regret what he said in his in-game interview about the officials, noting that he had a player change her jersey after it was ripped. But that player, Sarah Strong, ripped her own shirt
Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley have tense postgame exchange after South Carolina shock UConn in Final Four
UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had a heated exchange on the sideline after the Gamecocks beat the undefeated Huskies 62-48 in Friday night’s semi-final of the women’s NCAA Tournament.South Carolina ended UConn’s winning streak at 54 games and secured a return trip to the national championship game.As the two met in front of the scorer’s table with 0.1 seconds left, Auriemma appeared to go to shake Staley’s hand and began yelling in her direction. Staley responded with words of her own
County cricket: Gay makes hay on opening day to blast season’s first century
DIVISION ONESophia Gardens: Glamorgan 99-4 v YorkshireSouthampton: Hampshire v Essex 219-3Grace Road: Leicestershire 15-1 v Sussex 361Taunton: Somerset 292-6 v NottinghamshireEdgbaston: Warwickshire v Surrey 328DIVISION TWOThe County Ground: Derbyshire 391-4 v WorcestershireChester le Street: Durham 335 v Kent 50-2Lord’s: Middlesex 279-5 v GloucestershireWantage Road: Northamptonshire v Lancashire 346-7The spectre of the Ashes loomed over day one of a new Championship season, every innings, every wicket, a play in one act sent straight to the laptop of Brendon McCullum.England Lion Emilio Gay won the race to the first century of the season for Durham, a classy innings, fierce on the loose ball, and in tricky conditions at Chester-le-Street. When he was finally out, a fourth catch of the day to Kent’s Zak Crawley, he had pocketed 128 from just 140 balls.Crawley’s turn with the bat went about as well as Jamie Smith’s and Ollie Pope’s over at Edgbaston, two boundaries before falling lbw to Matthew Potts for nine.At Grace Road Tom Clark embroidered a stylish 101, as Sussex gave promoted Leicestershire a bloody nose in the morning session, racing to 155 for two by lunch
Foakes to the rescue for Surrey as County Championship makes its earliest start
The County Championship whirred back into life on Good Friday, with 3 April its earliest start in history. By extension, Rory Burns claimed the record for its earliest dismissal, with Surrey’s captain run out 10 minutes into the day’s play at Edgbaston in a scene usually reserved for the village green.Cricket really can be a sod sometimes. All that pre-season graft, all those hours dreaming big, only to plink a drive early on, think it has beaten mid-off, and set off for the run in good faith. The throw from Warwickshire’s Ed Barnard may have been wild but Kai Smith mopped up smartly at the stumps
Timeforshowcasing into Classic contention after Burradon success
Charlie Johnston picked up a decent bonus on top of the trainer’s share of the prize money after backing Timeforshowcasing for the Burradon Stakes at Newcastle on Friday at prices up to 25-1, and could now fast-track his filly into Classic company at either Newmarket or the Curragh next month.Timeforshowcasing was up against some promising colts and geldings in the Listed contest over a mile but travelled easily through the early stages before taking it up at the furlong pole and holding off the late challenge of Padraig Dawn by a neck.“All day I’ve been thinking, ‘what do people know that I don’t?’, because this filly worked last Thursday and I thought she was in phenomenal order,” Johnston said.“She was 6-1, went out to 10-1, then 16s and she’s won at 25-1. I hope my bookmaker gives best odds guaranteed
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