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Ever since Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, died under mysterious circumstances after falling ill at a Malaysian airport on Monday, the story has taken increasingly stranger turns. South Korea accused Jong-un of orchestrating his half-brother’s assassination, and one of the two women accused of carrying it out did so while wearing a shirt with “LOL” emblazoned across its front. Yet as The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah pointed out on Wednesday, perhaps one of the odder — though unfortunately not so surprising — results of this news story was CNN’s reporting of it.
Specifically, The Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer’s non-stop use of terrible puns based on Jong-un’s name to describe it and relevant updates. “This is a really tragic story,” said Noah. “Not that you’d know it from the way CNN covered it.” Cue the clip featuring Blitzer delivering the choice phrase “an un-expected death” to report on Jong-nam’s alleged assassination. “CNN, why? And you’ve been doing so well recently! A man was killed here, and you’re going with ‘un-expected’?”
The audience’s nervous laughter notwithstanding, Noah quickly notes “that seems bad until you realize that Wolf Blitzer has an ‘un-controllable’ problem.” Hence a clip montage featuring additional “un-” puns uttered by the veteran CNN anchor whenever reporting on stories pertaining to North Korea in the recent past. Things like “un-seen threat,” “un-stable,” “un-healthy,” “un-der fire,” “cruel and un-usual,” and many, many others.
“Are you f*ck-un kidding me?” Noah quipped. “Get help, my friend.”
