In the UK, residents are bracing for the hottest day on record and “to stay cool, the guards at Buckingham Palace have waxed their hats,” Colbert joked. In US news, the Jan. 6 committee learned last week that the Secret Service deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after oversight officials requested they be turned over. The justification for why the messages were deleted has shifted several times, from “device replacement program” to “pre-planned relocation system” to “the dog ate our phones, our phones are going through a tunnel, and finally, “New phone, who dis?’ Colbert joked. Meanwhile, Joe Biden toured the Middle East and met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Biden once referred to as an “outcast” for his role in the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This was always going to be an emotional journey because the heir apparent is, and I’m putting it mildly here, a killer,” Colbert said. “But on the other hand, gas is $5 a gallon, so… “It was important that Biden put a lot of thought into how he would greet MBS,” he continued. Biden opted for a fist bump instead of the customary handshake, “and … boom goes morality,” Colbert said.
Trevor Noah
“Is it funny how President Biden thought it would be better to punch Mohammed bin Salman because that seems… less friendly than a handshake?” Trevor Noah said on Monday’s Daily Show. “This is the whitest decision ever. Why it’s the other way around: handshakes are the most formal way to meet someone. “Even with your enemy you can be like, ‘hello,’” he continued, miming a handshake. “But the punch is like, ‘Whoah!’ “You know what I really think happened? I think Joe Biden’s team informed him and he’s like, “Mr. President, in Saudi Arabia, if you drive them crazy and do it, they’re going to cut your hand off, so hide your fingers.” The moment was especially awkward, Noah explained, because Biden didn’t mince words when referring to the successor during the 2020 presidential campaign. As he said during a presidential debate: “Khasoghi was actually murdered and dismembered. And I believe by order of the crown prince. There is very little social redemption value in the current government in Saudi Arabia. We will, in effect, make them pay the price, and make them, in effect, the outcasts that they are. “Awkward,” Noah said. “How do you go from flying across the world to meet the man in his palace?”
Seth Meyers
And on Late Night, Seth Meyers also ripped Biden for his first run-in with the crown prince. “Now, I know you did that because you didn’t want to be seen shaking his hand, but a punch is a lot worse,” Meyers said. “At least with a handshake you might think, ‘Well, they’re two world leaders, like it or not, but that’s pretty standard. But a fist bump makes it look like he hit a home run in the company softball game.’ Myers then turned to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress trial, which is set to begin this week after jury selection was recently completed. “I’m sorry, but even if you’ve never heard of Steve Bannon, how could you look at this guy and be fair and impartial,” he said. “Even if I had no idea who he was, I’d take one look at him and say, at best, he’d been arrested for stealing a seaplane in the Florida Keys or maybe selling illegal soda on the sidewalk in Times Square. . “Also, if you’re thinking to yourself ‘wasn’t Steve Bannon already arrested for a different crime?’ the answer is yes,” he said. “He was accused of defrauding Trump supporters in a wall-building fraud fundraiser and was arrested on a fugitive Chinese billionaire’s yacht by postal cops before Trump pardoned him — another string of words that are both crazy and will mostly be forgotten in history because too much other crazy shit has happened.’
