“It was not only cruel and unnecessary, but very poorly thought out.”
That’s how Late Night’s Seth Meyers, who famously got under Donald Trump’s spray-tanned skin at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, characterized President Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries: Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and Syria. Oddly enough, Saudi Arabia, the home country to 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks, was not included in the ban. Saudi Arabia just so happens to conduct plenty of business with Trump, who registered up to eight companies there during his presidential campaign.
Oh, and none of the countries included in the ban has produced an immigrant who’s committed a terrorist attack on the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
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As for the “poorly thought out” part, The New York Times reported that President Trump failed to brief even his Secretary of Homeland Security, Gen. John F. Kelly, before signing the executive order.
“The order created confusion and chaos across at airports across the country, and resulted in the detention of over 100 people—including legal U.S. residents who had green cards,” said Meyers on Monday’s Late Night. “In fact, in an especially cruel twist, the ban resulted in the detention of an Iraqi who had worked for a decade as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq. And even after being detained at JFK for 18 hours, he had nothing but positive things to say about America.”
Indeed, when asked what he thought about America following the trying ordeal, Hameed Darweesh said, “America is the greatest nation. The greatest people in the world.”
“Think about that! He was detained for 18 hours at JFK and he still loves America. If you can spend over 2 hours at JFK without losing your shit, you should get automatic citizenship!” joked Meyers.
Darweesh wasn’t the only remarkably non-threatening person that found him or herself trapped in Trump’s Islamophobic imbroglio. A 75-year-old Iranian woman was detained for hours at LAX in Los Angeles, even though she’s been a green card holder since 1997.
“In a way, Trump did accomplish something truly remarkable: he managed to spark yet another round of massive, nationwide protests for the second time in just the first week of his presidency. And people are willing to go to shitty places to protest,” said Meyers. “Last week it was parks, this week it was airports, next week people are going to march for gay rights at the DMV. The tone of the protests made clear that these were not fleeting, spontaneous gatherings but organized resistance that will not go away anytime soon—as this sign made clear: ‘First they came for the Muslims and we said not today, motherfucker.’”
Trump’s myopia resulted in a New York judge ordering a stay stopping all deportations, issuing a statement that Meyers said we’re going to hear a lot over the next four years: “I think the government hasn’t had a full chance to think about this.”
Following the nationwide protests against the executive order, President Trump first insisted that it did not constitute a “Muslim ban,” before accidentally letting slip that it was indeed a “ban” via his favorite medium, Twitter:
And, during an appearance on Fox News over the weekend, Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani all but admitted that the executive order did constitute a Muslim ban, albeit using dressed-up language.
“When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally,’” confessed Giuliani. “What we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger—the areas of the world that create danger for us.’” Cue Meyers: “It’s only been a week, but the Trump administration has already revealed itself to be a government of incompetent authoritarians with nothing but contempt for many of the basic constitutional principles this country’s cherished since it’s founding.”
