31/08/2026
☝️💩
John Cleese watched Donald Trump invite officials to compete over who could praise him most, and said the scene was so absurd it could have come straight from Monty Python.
The extraordinary moment unfolded during a White House roundtable about crime in Memphis, Tennessee.
Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller began by describing Trump’s achievements as a “national miracle” that would be studied for centuries.
Rather than bringing the praise to an end, Trump turned to FBI Director Kash Patel and challenged him to “see if you can top that.”
What followed was nearly two more minutes of senior officials taking turns to compliment the president, before Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton thanked Trump for “delivering freedom.”
Watching the exchange, Cleese remarked that it was “hard to believe this isn’t a Monty Python sketch.”
Then came his characteristically ruthless punchline.
The 86-year-old comedian suggested that when Trump is eventually gone, the celebrations will be heard as far away as “the outer moons of Jupiter.”
It was savage—even by Cleese’s standards—and immediately reignited the argument about whether comedians should say absolutely anything about powerful political figures.
Cleese has never hidden his contempt for Trump or members of his administration. He has previously called the president a “short-fingered vulgarian” and accused him of having “lost his mind.”
In 2025, he also deleted a controversial post about Stephen Miller after the official discussed potentially suspending habeas corpus for detained migrants.
Some people believe comedians have an important role in mocking power, particularly when political events already appear beyond parody.
Others argue that joking about someone’s eventual death crosses a line, regardless of how strongly you dislike their politics.
But perhaps Cleese’s sharpest observation wasn’t the final insult. It was that a genuine White House meeting could now resemble something the Pythons might once have considered too ridiculous to write.
Was John Cleese’s response brutally funny—or did he take it too far?
And what do you make of senior officials competing to praise a president quite so enthusiastically?
