Stephen Colbert celebrates 'Comey Testimony Eve' by creating an attack ad against an audience member
There was so much to talk about on Wednesday's Late Show, Stephen Colbert said, "I'm going to do two monologues." The first one, of course, celebrated "the most magical night of the year ... Comey Testimony Eve." The anticipation of former FBI Director James Comey's Senate testimony on his conversations with President Trump is so ripe, he said, you can taste it, and then he sang Phil Collins: "I can feel it Comey in the air tonight." (The drum fill makes the joke.)
At Comey's request, the Senate released his opening statement. "There's a lot of weird stuff in this document," Colbert said, reading through much of it and taking special note of Trump's protestation that he didn't hire "Russian hookers," his surprise dinner for two, and his referring to the Russia investigation as "the cloud" hanging over him. "Mr. President, that's not a cloud," Colbert said. "Meteorologists call that a sh-tstorm." In any case, "tomorrow, Comey is going to say all of this out loud, and senators will get to ask him questions about it for hours," he concluded. "I'm pretty excited."
"I'll tell you who's not excited: the president," Colbert said. "Evidently, the Russia investigation is really taking a toll on Trump." He went through some of the reports on Trump's White House misery — "he's entering his fat goth phase," Colbert said, "he'll work through it" — and his increased time watching cable news. Trump is also reportedly chomping at the bit to live-tweet the hearing, which Colbert encouraged: "I can't wait to see the tweets: 'Despite this slanderous testifefe.'" And Trump isn't counter-punching by himself, he said, playing part of an attack ad a pro-Trump is running against Comey.
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"As Mahatma Gandhi once said, 'what the hell was that?'" he asked. "In case you're keeping track of norms that have been violated, this is a big one." Attack ads always target politicians running for office, but Comey is a private citizen summoned to testify by Congress. "You might as well just make an attack ad about one of my audience members there." And that's just what he did. Sorry, guy in Seat 12. 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.
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