Stephen Colbert isn't super impressed with Donald Trump's black voter outreach
The Late Show may have been off for two weeks, replaced by reruns, "but Donald Trump had original episodes the entire time," Stephen Colbert said Monday night. He decided to catch up with a segment called "What Donald Trump Did On My Summer Vacation," cautiously. "He's like arsenic," Colbert said. "You have to take little sips every day so he doesn't kill you." The first thing of note Trump did, according to Colbert, is try to appeal to someone, in this case black voters. Colbert distilled Trump's "what the hell do you have to lose?" pitch down to lawn-sign size: "It's all summed up in Trump's new slogan: 'You're already on fire, so you may as well shoot yourself in the head.'"
Trump's argument earned actual boos from Colbert's audience, until he defused it with an exchange with bandleader Jon Batiste and noted that Trump is currently in fourth place among black voters — in a two-person race. "That's like coming in third in solitaire," he said. Colbert ended with a look at Trump's new campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, former chairman of Breitbart News. "Now, if you haven't heard of Breitbart News, that means you do not have a racist uncle on Facebook," he explained, and like Trump, Bannon is a fighter. "That's right, Bannon thinks the reason Trump is behind in the polls is that he's been too civil," Colbert said. "And now the gloves are off — the tiny, tiny gloves." Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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