"You know how there's all this smoke about the idea that Trump and his folks colluded with the Russians to influence the election, and the Trump people are, like, 'There's nothing to see here'?" Stephen Colbert asked on Thursday's Late Show. "Well, I spy with my little eye the attorney general of the United States." He walked through the problems Jeff Sessions now faces, from charges that he lied under oath to Congress to the substance of his misleading comments: meetings with the Russian ambassador.
Sessions partially bowed to pressure Thursday afternoon and announced he'd recuse himself from any Justice Department or FBI investigation of Trump's campaign and Russia, but Colbert wasn't overly impressed. "You called yourself a campaign surrogate, then you lied under oath that you never met with the Russians, so you don't have to recuse yourself," he said, "because you've already [censored] yourself."
The Sessions-Russia imbroglio wasn't the only thing going on in the Trump White House on Thursday, Colbert noted, shifting gears. "While his attorney general was going up in flames, Trump was down in Virginia addressing the military in Newport News — or as he calls it, 'Newport Fake News.'" He wasn't entirely sold on Trump's new military dress-up look, or his knowledge of the modern U.S. Navy, playing a clip of Trump talking about what it was like to be on the USS Gerald Ford. "Congratulations," Colbert said, "you've just described a boat."
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Colbert kicked off Thursday's Late Show with a quick, more lighthearted jab at Sessions, set to nice Russian-sounding music. Watch below. Peter Weber
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