Colbert Gleefully Mocks Kushner Downgrade: “How Will He Fix the Middle East Now?!”

Celebrities

As Stephen Colbert opened The Late Show Monday night, his audience cheered at the news that senior White House adviser and Donald Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner had lost his top-secret security clearance. A longtime critic of Kushner, like the rest of late-night, Colbert feigned dismay at his audience’s reaction. “What is wrong with you people?!” he scolded. “How will he fix the Middle East now? He was so close to starting!”

News broke Tuesday afternoon that Kushner and other White House aides, who had previously been granted interim clearances, had been stripped of that privilege Friday. Now, Kushner’s clearance level has downgraded from “top-secret” to “secret.”

“Merely secret clearance,” Colbert said. “Which means Kushner will have access to only nine herbs and spices . . . Of course, the last two are salt and fried salt.”

Seth Meyers was similarly amused by the news during his Late Night monologue on NBC, quipping, “Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner lost his top secret security clearance on Friday, because as it turns out, you have to be 18!”

So, what will the actual fallout be from this? For one thing, as Trevor Noah pointed out on The Daily Show, “Kushner will have to learn about the nation’s most sensitive secrets just like the rest of us—wait for Trump to tweet them out.”

But how exactly is that going to work? “[Kushner] is still going to be at the White House, but now he’s not allowed to hear certain information,” Noah said. “So now in meetings, General [John] Kelly will be like, ‘What are we going to do about the N-U-K-E-S?’ and Jared will be like, ‘I know what that means!’ And Trump will be like, “I don’t, I don’t!’”

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Full ScreenPhotos:22 Movies and TV Shows That Will Save Us in 2018

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<em>Solo: A Star Wars Story</em>

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Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com. She was formerly an editorial assistant at Slate and lives in Brooklyn.

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