Stephen Colbert has some fun with Trump outsourcing his Paul Ryan-bashing to Jeanine Pirro

Stephen Colbert pokes fun at Judge Jeanine Pirro

(Image credit: Late Show)

published 28 March 2017

Stephen Colbert was somewhere drinking rum last week, despite his cleverly pretaped shows, he admitted on Monday's Late Show. "What a great time to have been away from the show — nothing happened while I was gone, right?" he deadpanned. He showed some cartoonishly disturbing "footage" of the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare, then got down to the business of political comedy. "So, on Friday, lacking the votes they needed, they folded the ObamaCare repeal and placed it in the cabinet of broken Republican dreams," Colbert said, "next to trickle-down economics and a Jesus-shaped fighter jet that drops gay people on ISIS."

This was an embarrassing failure for President Trump, so who did he blame? The Democrats — "not enough votes to get a majority," Colbert mused, "well, that didn't stop you from becoming president" — plus conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans... basically, everyone but one person: Donald Trump. "After all his campaign promises, nothing," Colbert said. "It's almost like you can't trust a fast-talking city slicker who rolls into town promising a magic solution for all our medical needs. I'm starting to doubt the effectiveness of Dr. Bannon's Anti-Muslim Toad Oil."

Oh, Trump also seemed to blame Paul Ryan, indirectly, farming out the dirty work to Jeanine Pirro on Fox News. Colbert noted Trump's tweeted-out alert to watch Pirro's show Saturday night, showed some highlights of the show, and seemed to suggest that perhaps Pirro had been tippling before her passionate defense of Trump and call for Ryan to step down. Then he made it specific. "Well, I've got to say, if he likes Judge Jeanine, Trump is going to love tonight's episode of The Late Show's pro-Trump news team, Real News Tonight," Colbert said. And this very special edition of the fake-news broadcast features a vaguely familiar anti-Ryan rant from "Judge Sally Blazerface." 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.