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Seth Meyers calls out Trump's defense of killing Iranian general as 'Orwellian'

A new year of Late Night with Seth Meyers premiered on Monday, but the host was still stuck tackling some old problems. "2020 is already the worst," Meyers said with a despairing smile. It's hard to disagree.

Chief on the agenda was Trump's Jan. 3 drone strike on Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, as well as the president's subsequent tweets claiming to be targeting 52 Iranian sites. 

"You can't just kill a top general of a sovereign nation and then call it de-escalation," said Meyers, labelling Trump's assertion that he called the strike to prevent a war "Orwellian."

Meyers also addressed Mike Pence's claim that Soleimani was linked to 9/11, which has no evidence to support it. Republicans also made similar claims to justify the war in Iraq almost two decades ago when they linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda — a link which, as Meyers points out, was similarly baseless.