Seth Meyers: A Closer Look at Trump’s Iran crisis and blaming Obama

In “A Closer Look” Seth Meyers argues that President Donald Trump took credit for stopping a war with Iran that he almost started.

President Donald Trump delivered his first major speech of 2020 when he delivered comments on tensions with Iran. President Trump’s public comments are always in need of close examination and nobody does it better than Late Night with Seth Meyers with “A Closer Look.”

President Trump addressed the nation on Wednesday and provided updates on the situation with Iran. Two U.S. bases in Iraq was hit with several missiles fired by Iran in retaliation for the airstrike that killed military leader Qasem Soleimani. There were no casualties from Iran’s strike and President Trump indicated that Iran was “standing down” and thus war had been avoided.

But as usual, the President couldn’t make it through the speech without being criticized. Many were quick to point out that the entire situation could have been avoided if President Trump kept the Iran nuclear deal in place or chose a different option than killing Soleimani. And then there was Twitter where “Adderall” and “sniffing” were trending after the televised address.

On Late Night, Seth Meyers used both approaches in “A Closer Look” by mocking both the substance and delivery of President Trump’s message. Watch as Meyers questions the leadership in the White House and why former President Barack Obama was getting the blame for Iran-U.S. relations.

Late Night is the go-to source in late night if you want to get reaction to one of President Trump’s speeches. Meyers’ coverage of President Trump’s first rambling monologue on windmills  remains one of the best segments in recent Late Night memory.

A big reason why those speeches make such good late night fodder is because President Trump is often very hypocritical and contradictory. Meyers points out that President Trump is acting like a hero for preventing World War III despite the fact that he is the one who brought us to the brink.

It’s a point that Meyers returns to by the end of “A Closer Look.” President Trump escalated tensions by ripping up the Obama-era deal with Iran. And now President Trump is calling for a new deal to be reached to ensure peace. But Meyers warns that Iran is unlikely to negotiate with someone who can’t be trusted to keep their word.

The logic is a bit confusing for Meyers and the comedian suggests that perhaps President Trump was confused, too. He describes the speech as “off-kilter” and shows examples of the President struggling to read his teleprompter. Making jokes about misspeaking can be low-hanging fruit but for Meyers, it’s not that President Trump’s slips up. What Meyers finds funny is that the President never corrects himself or considers clarifying what he said.

From there, Meyers goes after President Trump for repeating an “insane” talking point that argues former President Barack Obama is to blame for what happened. The Fox News clips showcase how common this theory is and the idea that the Obama administration paid for Iranian missiles indirectly. But that theory has been debunked and as Meyers notes, there are plenty of other things worth criticizing President Obama for.

The speech had everything we’ve come to expect in a White House speech. President Trump spouted conspiracy theories, made himself the hero in the disaster of his own making, and took shots at his predecessor. It also mean that it had everything fans needed to get another excellent edition of “A Closer Look.”