"We've been talking about Donald Trump on the show for a while, and I'm sure you're saying to yourself, 'But wait, Stephen, when is Donald Trump going to weigh in on Civil War history?'" Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. "Well, you're in luck." On Monday, Trump went on SiriusXM radio and argued that Andrew Jackson could have stopped the Civil War. "Exactly, Andrew Jackson said, 'There's no reason for this,'" Colbert said. "He said, 'We don't need a Civil War, all my slaves are perfectly happy.' Now — and one rarely hears this — in fairness to Andrew Jackson, I'm not surprised he didn't stop the Civil War, given that he died 16 years before it started."
Trump wasn't done. He also insisted that nobody asks why the Civil War even started in the first place. "It's one of the great mysteries of our time: 'Why was there a Civil War?'" Colbert deadpanned. "Also, 'Who murdered the Titanic?' We'll never know." The ghost of Abraham Lincoln appeared, yelling, "Slavery!" No one has to ask why the Civil War started, he said. "Read the f—ing Emancipation Proclamation. Come on, people. I mean, seriously, how many times does Daniel Day Lewis have to tell you, it's slavery. Knock, knock, who's there? The Union Army come to free the slaves, you brain-dead pumpkin." Colbert, reasonably, asked the ghost of Lincoln why he doesn't just go to the White House and tell Trump himself, but it seems there are places too haunted for even presidential ghosts. Watch below. Peter Weber
The Week
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