The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has long tried to be a filter for things coming out of Trump World. But even Stephen Colbert struggled to understand exactly what Elon Musk and DOGE are doing to the federal government.
For years, fans have tuned in to The Late Show to hear Colbert try to make sense of what President Trump and his administration were doing. It could at least bring some level of levity to the daily tidal wave of news.
However, Trump 2.0 seems to be bringing a level of chaos that even Colbert can't comprehend. The late-night TV host's monologue on Wednesday night picked through the decisions by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.
Colbert recapped how federal workers at the Small Business Administration were fired, told it was a mistake, and then fired again. But he wasn't done there.
"Elon and the DOGE-bags have fired so many people so quickly in so many critical areas with so little thought beforehand that the government is now scrambling to rehire the nuclear staff it fired on Friday," Colbert said.
The Late Show host laid out just how shortsighted these firing were by DOGE. Colbert noted the national security risk in laying off these workers and then blasted the government for struggling to contact the fired employees since they're locked out of their official email accounts.
"Now we have a bunch of pissed off people with a lot of time on their hands who know how to build nuclear weapons," Colbert exclaimed. "Well, at least you couldn't find them."
Stephen Colbert warns of another pandemic thanks to government firings
Things didn't end with just the Small Business Administration or the nuclear program. Stephen Colbert shared a story about the Department of Agriculture admitting it accidentally fired employees working on bird flu and now was trying to rehire them.
"Whoops-a-pandemic," Colbert said in response. "Thankfully, we all know that Donald Trump is a steady hand in a public health crisis. 'Have we tried deep frying the birds in bleach?'" he added in his signature Trump voice.
Nobody wants to go back to a pandemic. And Stephen Colbert certainly doesn't want to go back to covering Donald Trump's response to a pandemic. But the Late Show host doesn't sound confident after hearing about all these federal government layoffs.