Stephen Colbert conducts his own delightfully plausible interview with 'Melania Trump'

Stephen Colbert interviews &quot;Melania Trump&quot;

(Image credit: Late Show)

Melania Trump broke her silence on Donald Trump's hot-mic Access Hollywood video on Monday, and on Tuesday's Late Show, Stephen Colbert brought actress Laura Benanti back on the show, the best Melania Trump impersonator on late-night TV (sorry, Cecily Strong), for his own interview. But first he looked at Melania Trump's real chats with CNN and Fox News, where she said Billy Bush "egged" Trump on. "Yes, it was all Billy Bush's fault," Colbert said. "Now I know why they're on a bus — it's easier to throw Billy underneath it."

"So let me just get this straight," Colbert recapped: "Melania's defense of Donald Trump — the man who wrote The Art of the Deal — is that he got outmaneuvered by a man who has been deemed by the Today show to be unqualified to watch someone else make a festive fall frittata. If Billy Bush can manipulate Donald Trump, we've got to keep President Trump away from heavy-hitters like Mario Lopez." The Melania interviews were a surprise because we have barely seen her since the Republican National Convention, Colbert said, "but now that she has resurfaced, we at The Late Show want in."

Benanti's Melania began by saying she definitely was alone and not being coached, setting up a recurring gag, and she generally hewed pretty close to Trump's actual remarks — until the end. "Do you think these scandals will doom your husband's chances among women?" Colbert asked. "No, women know it's boy talk," she said. "I hate to point this out, but your husband isn't a boy, he's a 70-year-old man," Colbert noted. "Boys, men, it's the same," Benanti's Melania said. "No matter how nice they seem, secretly they're all foul-mouthed, Billy Bush–grabbing pigs. I'm talking about your husband, your brother, the pope, Luke Skywalker, all of them." "All men are like this?" Colbert asked, and she delivered the coup de grâce: "Yes, they're all animals. If only a woman could be president." 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.