Stephen Colbert Already Misses That ‘Voice of Reason, Mad Dog’

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/arts/television/stephen-colbert-jim-mattis-trump.html

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Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has become the second four-star general this month to quit the Trump administration. With his unexpected decision on Thursday to step down in protest of the president’s policies, Mattis added to the turmoil in Washington, where the government may be headed toward a shutdown and the White House chief of staff, the retired Marine general John F. Kelly, is about to leave.

Stephen Colbert, referring to Mattis by his nickname, suggested that he wouldn’t normally be upset to see him go, but that these are strange times.

“Kind of scary when everyone says, ‘Oh, there goes the voice of reason, Mad Dog.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT

In his resignation letter, Mattis patently rejected core elements of Trump’s worldview.

“Mattis took a shot at Trump on his way out, saying in his resignation letter to the president, ‘You have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours.’ Yes — perhaps a feral child, snarling at those who dare approach his pile of rotting food scraps?” — STEPHEN COLBERT

Jimmy Kimmel decried the president’s stance on the potential government shutdown. He said that in a season that’s about giving, Trump was threatening to take away people’s paychecks.

“Hundreds of thousands of workers won’t get paid. Basically, Trump is taking paychecks from federal employees at Christmastime to punish Congress for not paying for a wall he swore 500 times Mexico would be paying for. So, Feliz Navidad, everyone.” — JIMMY KIMMEL

“President Trump will travel tomorrow to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to begin his 16-day vacation, where he will spend the holiday season in the company of Loved One.” — SETH MEYERS, showing a picture of Trump standing in front of a mirror

“I saw that Google has a Santa tracker where you can watch Santa’s journey around the world. Yeah, not to be outdone, Facebook has a tracker where you can steal Santa’s social security number.” — JIMMY FALLON

“I heard that a popular gift this year are those personal DNA testing kits. You know those? They’re pretty cool. You send in your sample, and then after a few weeks you get a letter back that says, ‘Sir, that cup was for saliva.’” — JIMMY FALLON

Before he headed off for the holiday break, Stephen Colbert teamed up with Showtime’s “Our Cartoon President” to create a fairly nonsensical animated short — about a Trump-supporting faux Santa Claus who conspires with the president to win “the war on Christmas.”

Jimmy Kimmel had a similar idea: He read from a Dr. Seuss-parodying book, “How the Trump Saved Christmas.”

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