Stephen Colbert: Trump’s stupidity and pettiness saved us from John Bolton

Stephen Colbert was glad to see John Bolton fired from the White House even if it wasn’t for the right reasons.

Every so often, Stephen Colbert will give President Donald Trump some praise or a compliment. It is typically a backhanded compliment but beggars can’t be choosers. Fans saw the latest example of that as Colbert recapped Trump’s firing of National Security Adviser John Bolton.

There are very few members of Trump’s cabinet that have avoided the wrath of late night hosts. Despite Trump’s promise to only hire the best people, there have been a number of reasons for hosts like Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers to take a closer look at Team Trump.

John Bolton was no different. Besides the low-hanging fruit of mustache jokes, there was plenty said about Bolton’s foreign policy ideas as well as his relationship with President Trump.

Bolton was asked to submit his resignation or resigned on his own depending on which version of the story you believe. Things reached a breaking point when Bolton pushed back against Trump’s desire to host Taliban leaders at Camp David.

Whatever the reason(s), Stephen Colbert is happy to see Bolton go. Colbert described Bolton as a “warmonger” while delivering his latest backhanded compliment to Trump.

For Colbert, anyone who needs Donald Trump to be the voice of reason shouldn’t be in charge of anything. Bolton by all accounts was eager to start a war–something that Trump wanted to avoid. Something similar has come up on The Late Show when Colbert praised Trump’s position on not going to war with Iran.

However, like a lot of things in the White House, the resignation didn’t exactly go smoothly. Bolton quickly sent out his own tweet suggestion he wanted to resign and therefore was not fired. The dismissal of Bolton took many by surprise considering he was scheduled to appear at a press conference just 90 minutes before Trump’s tweet.

This is where the pettiness comes in for Stephen Colbert. Rather than let Bolton resign on his own terms, President Trump told him to wait so that he could be the one to announce it and frame the narrative.

So even though he hired John Bolton after seeing him on Fox News, President Donald Trump redeemed himself in the eyes of Stephen Colbert. The turnover in the White House may not be a good sign, but if pettiness can keep a warmonger away, then Colbert is on board.