Stephen Colbert surrenders to the flood of election conspiracy theories, makes up new ones

Stephen Colbert makes up conspiracy theories

(Image credit: Late Show)

last updated 4 November 2016

Stephen Colbert asked his viewers if they'd read the WikiLeaks bombshell about the Hillary Clinton campaign buying the apartment under Donald Trump's so they could spy on him. Despite his realistic New York Times screenshot, he made that one up, he shrugged on Thursday's Late Show, "but you believed it for a second, because this election is f—ing insane. Stuff way crazier than that gets made up all the time and somehow becomes news." Colbert touched on the torrent of fake news polluting Facebook — much of it from Macedonia.

"No one knows what's true anymore, no one knows what reality is," he said, running though some of the actual conspiracy theories you may have already forgotten about this election. And since "it's become impossible to know what to believe," he said, "why not believe everything?" So Colbert literally put on a tinfoil hat, returned to his Truth Bunker, drank a little NyQuil, and spun some crazy and often amusing conspiracy theories using an impressive array of props. Some were about cats and dogs and Don McLean lyrics, but there were a few political ones thrown in as well. "Is it possible that we've all been groped by Donald Trump but just didn't feel it because of his tiny baby hands?" Colbert asked. "Why do Gary Johnson's voters still have to go to the polls on election day when they could just as easily flush their ballot down the toilet at home?" That last one's easy — to get to the other side (of 5 percent of the vote for the Libertarian Party). For the other puzzlers, 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.