Count The Daily Show‘s Josh Johnson as one of the many who don’t see the need for National Guard troops in Portland.
As courts consider the legality of the Trump administration’s deployment in the Oregon city and others, Johnson on Thursday compared the place that the president has said is a war zone and has been taken over by “Antifa thugs” to the beloved children’s show Barney.
In one clip, purportedly of dangerous nighttime “Antifa” activity, a mob of about 20 people, several of them costumed and with their faces covered, reveled in the street as music played.
“Fear is a powerful drug, but so is MDMA,” Johnson observed of the bobbing neon dinosaur and unicorn.
“Listen, Trump, I’m trying to be an ally. But right now, I don’t really see dangerous criminals, I just see virgins,” Johnson joked. “And I’m not sure we need the military for that.”
“Everything that they claim is happening in Portland, it’s all happening on one city block in front of one ICE building,” he continued. “The rest of the city is completely normal. I mean, it’s still Portland…. So it’s normal, but it’s, like, Portland normal. You know what I mean? Like, there will be a naked guy with a handlebar mustache riding a unicycle down the street, but that’s supposed to be happening,”
“So far, all I’ve seen is a guy in a chicken suit and an episode of Barney.” Johnson joked.
Later, he addressed the president directly.
“But here’s the thing, Trump, I don’t think the situation in Portland is a five-alarm, DEFCON 1, bust-out-the-windows type of emergency,” he said. “And I don’t think you think that either. Because this whole meeting where you’re talking about how dangerous ‘Antifa’ is, you all look bored as hell.”
The Daily Show/YouTube
Johnson referred to a meeting at the White House on Wednesday in which Trump and his advisers talked about the alleged dangers the city faces.
“Trump has fallen asleep. Pam Bondi got to tilt her neck up to stay awake. Stephen Miller is yawning!” Johnson noted over footage of the group. “The most radical person in the cabinet looked like he drained. He looks like he’s sitting at a piano recital after his kid finished.”
Johnson closed with a comparison of Trump’s Antifa bogeyman to Bigfoot: “It’s big, scary, and tearing up the Pacific Northwest.”
“But,” he continued, “all we ever hear about is what the people who believe in it think is happening.”
