Stephen Colbert begs Donald Trump not to run America from Trump Tower

Donald Trump is still president-elect and President Obama is out of the country, trying to reassure allies that "Trump will be a responsible, pragmatic president," Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. "Then those leaders can fly back over here and try to convince us, because I still have my doubts." Colbert also scratched his head over the reports that Trump has told aides he would prefer to forego the White House and spend as much time as possible in New York, sleeping in his own bed in Trump Tower.

"This is the first president who considers living in the White House slumming it: '132 rooms, 55,000 square feet? I'll pass.'" Colbert said. "Does President-elect Trump not understand the No. 1 job requirement? It's right there in the Constitution: 'must be willing to relocate.'" There was also a personal angle for Colbert: "On behalf of 8 million people, please don't come back every week to New York! I am begging you." And he wasn't just saying he doesn't like Trump, or noting that Manhattan voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. "The one week a year when Obama comes in for the U.N., it's like the fall of Saigon meets Dante's Inferno meets World War Z around here," Colbert said, adding that the Secret Service says when Trump visits, they'll just shut down 5th Avenue. Traffic will be so bad, Colbert said, "whole generations of New Yorkers will be born and die without ever leaving their Uber."

Colbert gritted his teeth over Facebook's fake-news epidemic, yelled at the Macedonian millennials who create much of that content, then ended his monologue on a study that found the blood from human teens can rejuvenate the body and brain of old mice. That led to a joke about the 18- to -24-year-olds who didn't vote and Trump's ObamaCare plan, and a rare moment of dark hope for Colbert: "If young people's blood can rejuvenate the elderly, I say we hook up Ariana Grande to Ruth Bader Ginsburg." For what it's worth, the crowd thought that was a good idea. Watch below. Peter Weber

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