After tearing into the Trump administration’s separation of families at the U.S. border for multiple days, late-night hosts reacted to the president’s executive order ending the dispersal of families but retaining its “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal immigration on Wednesday night.
Early on Wednesday President Trump signed the order, which will keep families together as they are criminally prosecuted, in a dramatic turnaround of his stance on the issue. (The order may face legal challenges in coming weeks.) The hosts, which had been on the attack for days on the issue, on Wednesday expressed the dissonance of the president’s dramatic executive order signing, considering that Trump’s Department of Justice instituted the “zero-tolerance” policy that required family separation in the first place.
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On CBS’ Late Show, Stephen Colbert joked that “our long national nightmare is … different.”
Colbert noted that Trump had falsely been claiming for days that only Congress could change the family-separation policy. “Yes, however you slice it, Trump has changed his mind and decided to keep families together. And just in time, too: Melania was about to turn herself in at the border,” he continued.
TONIGHT! Trump tries to fix the humanitarian crisis he started with an executive order that…doesn’t fix the humanitarian crisis he started. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/Xz3PkzFyWH
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) June 21, 2018
Over on Comedy Central, Trevor Noah said, ironically, “Hurray, our hero! Trump right now is like if Superman threw a meteor at the Earth and then stopped it himself. Everyone is like, ‘Thanks, I guess?'”
Noah expressed that he wasn’t surprised by the turnaround, noting that every day there seemed to be a new development in the story, including Tuesday’s Associated Press story about “tender-age” facilities for babies and young children. He cracked a joke about the euphemism, saying, “That’s a hell of a fancy way to call a baby jail … That’s like calling a cross burning a meatless barbecue.”
Just after The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s The Opposition saw host Jordan Klepper mocking a White House statement blaming Congress for requiring the White House to intervene in immigration, calling the president too “humble.” “How dare you be so humble about boldly pushing America into moral territory we never thought would even be possible?” he asked.
Klepper then provided the leader with a reminder: “Just like cutting your steak and finding new ways to spell ‘border,’ you did this all yourself, Donald.”
On ABC’s Live!, meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel added, “Thank you, Mr. President, for lighting the house on fire and now putting the fire out.” The host added, “now – thanks to his new order– instead of being separated, families from other countries will be locked up together. Hopefully starting with his.”
And on TBS’ Full Frontal, host Samantha Bee similarly didn’t give the Trump Administration any credit for its new policy of jailing families together. “Yay, no more baby internment camps, just regular interment camps. Yay, that’s how we win in 2018,” she said. “Mommy and me jails are not a solution.”
This article originally appeared in THR.com.