Stephen Colbert: 'Trump’s defenders are backed into a corner'

Stephen Colbert

Donald Trump has officially changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida, reported Stephen Colbert on Monday’s Late Show. “Good riddance, Don,” he added. “Don’t let the door hit ya where the porn star spanked ya.”

According to Trump sources, the president is making the move primarily for tax reasons, but “just so we’re clear: Trump is leaving because of a tax problem he created,” Colbert explained, since New York state and local taxes went up because of the tax law Trump passed in late 2017.

In other words, his move to Florida is “the old fart in the elevator then take the stairs tactic”.

Colbert also touched on the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry, which congressional Republicans have dismissed for weeks as secretive and unfair. But on Monday, “Schiff just got real,” as the chair of the intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, started releasing transcripts of the committee’s closed-door testimonies. The first two transcripts released are more than 500 pages combined, “though I’m sure Bill Barr can get that down to two”, Colbert quipped.

Trump, predictably, lashed out at Schiff and called the transcripts fraudulent propaganda. Colbert refuted that characterization: “There’s a non-partisan stenographer in the room typing every word. There’s not a Democratic or Republican version of the transcript any more than there’s Democratic or Republican laws of physics,” he said. Then, imitating the president: “Look, if it was up to the Democrats, a feather and a brick would get to fall at the same acceleration rate in a vacuum, OK? That’s socialism. The brick earned it, OK?”

Trump’s furious denial meant that “Trump’s defenders are backed into a corner,” Colbert said. And according to the Washington Post, a growing number of Republican senators are considering acknowledging Trump’s quid pro quo on Ukraine. “The Republicans are so desperate, they’re considering telling the truth.”

Trevor Noah

There are a couple of issues Trump has intently focused on since taking office – “things like cutting regulations, pulling out of Iran, and legalizing flag marriage”, said the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah to a picture of Trump hugging a full-size American flag. “But the one issue he cares about more than anything else is his big, beautiful border wall.”

The “build the wall” chants have been ubiquitous at Trump rallies since the beginning of his campaign, and “in many ways, the wall is the son Trump always wanted – taller, stronger and somehow, smarter,” Noah said.

Noah recapped a “wall-themed” weekend for Trump, who was back on his wall boasting at a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi: “Trump gave his usual un-humble brag about how nothing can get through his wall. And you know how, in a sitcom, they cut right to the next scene? Well, cut right to the next scene.”

That scene: the same weekend, the Washington Post reported that Mexican smugglers have been sawing through a section of his wall using a “popular cordless household tool” that retails for as little as $100.

“Yep, that’s right – just after Trump bragged about his super-wall, we learned that smugglers have been cutting through the new border wall with basic tools you can buy at any hardware store,” Noah said.

When asked how he felt about the news, Trump said he hadn’t heard it but “you can cut through any wall”, and bragged that he designed this wall to be “easily fixed”.

“Hold on – for four years, this guy told us the wall would be impenetrable,” Noah marveled. “But now he’s like, ‘Yeah, of course, you can cut through anything.’ In the span of a few hours, Trump’s wall went from being Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson to literally any other guy named Dwayne.

“Also, if Trump is saying he built it on purpose to be something that’s easy to open and then close, it isn’t a wall,” Noah concluded. “My man, you’ve built a door.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers took a closer look at Republican efforts to stonewall the impeachment inquiry, starting with the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who described the inquiry as “an unfair process driven by sore losers”.

“They’re sore losers? They won the midterms,” Meyers said of House Democrats. “You guys are the ones who, whenever you lose, pass a bunch of laws making it harder to vote. That’s why Republicans love voter ID and gerrymandering so much.”

If Republicans lose the next election, Meyers continued, they’ll probably “introduce a bill mandating that all voters must have a valid driver’s license in at least three different states obtained at least six business years prior to the election and the only DMV in the country is located in an abandoned hotel on a cliff in Yosemite and it’s open from 1-4am on alternate Wednesdays in months beginning with the letter Q.”

And they’ll call it, he imagined, “The Freedom to Vote Act”.

Meanwhile on Monday, all four White House officials scheduled to testify before the House impeachment inquiry didn’t show, and other witnesses this week are reportedly planning to stonewall their subpoenas. “They’re just refusing to show up now,” said Meyers. “How long before Trump tries that tactic? The day he gets impeached he’ll probably be holed up in his bedroom hiding under a pillow fort – ‘You can’t impeach me if you can’t find me!’”