Look, this has been a strange week. On Tuesday, Donald Trump fired James Comey as director of the FBI. To close out the week, the president threateningly tweeted to Comey Friday morning, insinuating that he may have secretly taped conversations the two had together. The New York Times compared the tweet to the downfall of Richard Nixon, writing, “Mr. Trump’s mention of tapes did nothing to dispel the echoes of Watergate heard in Washington this week.”
In a time of such political turmoil, there’s some comforting reassurance to the constants and the staples in the news. Just like watching the intertwined destinies of Batman and the Joker as those rivals battle forever, yet another clip of Stephen Colbert going after Trump is now a welcome inevitability.
Trump called Colbert “a no-talent guy” just days ago. Colbert didn’t flinch, continuing to mock the president as he’s done for months.
Thursday night, Colbert spent much of his “Late Show” monologue going over the details of the Comey firing and Trump’s subsequently bizarre handling of the mess he created.
Colbert’s best critique was how Trump has been treating his staff extremely poorly throughout the week, as the president contradicts them over and over again.
Repeatedly, staffers trying to explain Trump’s motivations with Comey have claimed things that the president has later seemingly debunked. For example, the claim from staffers was that Trump was taking the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General for the firing. Trump went on to say in an interview with Lester Holt that the decision came from him alone.
Colbert described the situation as thus:
“The White House staff kept repeating that the decision came after the recommendation from Rosenstein, and today Trump backed those staffers up ... then ran them over repeatedly, by changing his story.” While saying this, Colbert thrust his hand forward repeatedly, mimicking a car running something over.
“Trump backed those staffers up ... then ran them over repeatedly.”
- Stephen Colbert
For a clear factual breakdown of the baffling communication problems within Trump’s team, the CBS News White House reporter Jacqueline Alemany tweeted out, “A list of the times over the past 3 days that the WH claimed @POTUS fired Dir. Comey based off of Rosenstein’s recommendation.”
Colbert went on to do a lengthy impression of Trump as he read various quotes of the president’s concerning all this. Then, in a bit of a left turn, Colbert broke into a Trump-related song and dance to the tune of “Summer Nights” from “Grease.”
It’s Friday. It’s almost the weekend. The news barely makes sense anymore. Just spend the next couple days gyrating your body around and singing at the top of your lungs.
