Comedian Stephen Colbert said President Donald Trump is “living in a fantasy,” after Trump claimed he would have run in unarmed to help stop the mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, earlier this month.
The Late Show host ridiculed Trump on Monday night, expressing doubt over Trump’s comments earlier in the day at a gathering of governors at the White House. “You don’t know until you’re tested, but I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” Trump told the group.
“O.K.,” Colbert responded after showing a clip of Trump’s speech to his Late Show audience. “There’s a lot in there that I doubt, but the part I really don’t believe is that he can run.”
“Look, sir,” Colbert continued, “we already know how you react to combat situations. You got five deferments from Vietnam. What are you going to do, run in there and stab them with your bone spurs?”
Colbert, a frequent Trump critic, said Trump was “living in a fantasy,” and, while doing so, could “at least make it interesting.” Impersonating the President, Colbert continued: “Even if I had a gun, I would’ve dropped it, just to show how tough I was. Then I would’ve run in and hit the shooter with my laser-beam eyes, then use my mind like Neo in The Matrix and fly away to space Mar-A-Lago. Space-A-Lago.”
Colbert also criticized White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s response to a question about Trump’s comments, in which she said Trump was explaining how he would have stepped up “as a leader.”
“Trump’s got all kinds of fantasies about what he would have done in that school,” Colbert said.
He then launched into an impression of Sanders: “The President believes he would have had a big role in the school if he were a student there. He’d be captain of the football team, probably dating the hottest girl. The other kids wold call him Big Donnie. He would sit at the cool lunch table, but in the end he surprises the nerds when he shows up to help them win the state spelling be.”
Trump’s comments Monday came after a local sheriff’s deputy resigned amid revelations that he stayed outside of the school while the shooting was taking place. Broward County is investigating whether other deputies were also slow to act during the shooting.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- How Donald Trump Won
- The Best Inventions of 2024
- Why Sleep Is the Key to Living Longer
- Robert Zemeckis Just Wants to Move You
- How to Break 8 Toxic Communication Habits
- Nicola Coughlan Bet on Herself—And Won
- Why Vinegar Is So Good for You
- Meet TIME's Newest Class of Next Generation Leaders
Contact us at letters@time.com