While the Oscar is an exciting event, things turned suddenly political when Conan O’Brien took a subtle dig at American President Donald Trump following Sean Baker’s Anora’s win, saying, “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.”
The audience received the comment well, which erupted with laughter and applause. O’Brien’s comments were particularly sharp and witty, following Trump’s disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.
O’Brien said, “Anora is having a good night. That’s great news. I suppose Americans are thrilled to see someone finally stand up to a powerful Russian.” This way, O’Brien made this huge joke on him without taking Trump’s name directly.
Coincidentally, Melania Trump was also a subject of jokes regarding the film Anora. While hosting the Critics Choice Award, Chelsea Handler made a passing reference to Anora being Melania Trump’s biopic, saying, “This year has given us great biopics; we also have the film Anora, which is about Melania Trump.”
It should be noted here that the official synopsis of Anora says it is a film about “a young escort from Brooklyn [who] meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairy tale is threatened as his parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.”
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Given the fact that Melania is much younger than Donald Trump and her husband is in rather great terms with Russia, Handler found it suitable to make the joke. The same can be said for O’Brien as his joke landed because of how badly the meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy went.
The meeting between the two was about the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, which Trump was supposed to end the day he came back to office. However, unsurprisingly enough, that did not happen. During this meeting, Zelenskyy constantly corrected Trump and JD Vance about various historical facts, which made Vance say that the Ukrainian President was “disrespectful.”
At some point in the meeting, Zelenskyy mentioned that it was because of the presence of the Atlantic Ocean between America and Ukraine that the former country is not feeling the full burn of the ongoing war.
How The Trump-Zelensky Oval Meeting Collapsed In 10 Fiery Minutes https://t.co/3qmikByBeT
— Mirror Now (@MirrorNow) March 2, 2025
However, this triggered Trump as he said, “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. You’re right now not in a very good position.” He further added, “You don’t have the cards right now. You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to this country.”
Trump almost appeared threatening when, at a different point, he said, “Your country is in big trouble. You are not winning this. The attitudes have to change. It’s going to be very hard to do business like this.”
With a meeting that went this bad and ended on a rather bad note, O’Brien’s joke came at the perfect time. Social media absolutely went crazy with the joke with one person posting that the joke was “the line of the night.” Another one said, “Conan still the absolute best.”
As another user pointed out, “Perfect #maga’s about to have a meltdown.” It now remains to be seen if Trump says anything regarding O’Brien’s comments on the night of the Oscars.
