Stephen Colbert used his Monday night monologue to ridicule President Donald Trump after the president posted a doctored image of himself styled on the Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now while threatening to send troops to Chicago.
Trump's weekend post, which superimposed his likeness on the Robert Duvall character Col. Bill Kilgore and placed the Chicago skyline behind him, included the caption, "I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR." Trump has advocated renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War and has repeatedly threatened to deploy the military to U.S. cities, actions he has pursued previously in Washington, D.C.
On The Late Show, Colbert mocked the image and Trump's posture in the picture, calling the depiction clearly artificial. "Check out Col. Bone Spurs," Colbert said, referencing the disputed diagnosis Trump cited to avoid military service during the Vietnam War. Colbert added, "That is clearly AI, because if Trump ever actually crouched like that, his cankles would pop like water balloons."
Colbert's segment framed the president's post as part of a pattern of combative rhetoric toward cities and federal institutions. The image circulated amid continued debate over Trump's public rhetoric and the practical implications of using federal troops for domestic enforcement tasks. Colbert's joke about "Bone Spurs" echoed longstanding scrutiny of the medical reason Trump gave for avoiding active duty in Vietnam.
The Late Show monologue combined direct quotation from Trump's social post with visual parody and a critique delivered in Colbert's characteristic late-night satirical style. The president's social media message repurposed a well-known cinematic line and image for political messaging; Colbert's response treated both the content and the presentation as fodder for satire.
The exchange is the latest example of how late-night television continues to respond to and lampoon presidential communications. Colbert's commentary followed the original social-media post and was broadcast during the program's Monday night segment.
No immediate public response from the White House to Colbert's monologue was included in the broadcast.
Colbert's remarks join a broader discourse in entertainment and political commentary that has repeatedly scrutinized the president's public statements, his use of imagery and social platforms, and the factual claims surrounding his past medical deferment from military service.