Stephen Colbert teases his Russia trip with a pretty gutsy clip of him on Russian late-night TV

On Monday's Late Show, Stephen Colbert reiterated that he was extremely happy to be back in America after his visit to Russia last week. "The whole trip was supposed to be top secret," he explained. "I'm serious. I wanted to get over there and get back before anybody knew. And some traitor leaked that I was over there. Luckily, after an exhaustive search, we have found the leaker — it was me." He showed the tweet he sent to President Trump showing himself in Russia, apologized to himself, then gave some context: "That's me in front of St. Petersburg's Winter Palace — or as they call it, Czar-a-Lago."

While in St. Petersburg, he was the guest on the late-night talk show Evening Urgant — "It's hosted by the very talented Ivan Urgant," he said. "Ivan, I presume, is Russian for 'Jimmy'" — "and while talking to Ivan, I accidentally made some news on purpose," Colbert said. He showed a bit of his interview, and it included some jokes about Russian election meddling that demonstrated some intestinal fortitude, or perhaps comedic foolhardiness. "Now, to be clear, all I said in that little clip there was that I was considering a run" for president in 2020, Colbert explained. "If I decide to run, obviously I'm not going to ask the Russians to help my campaign, okay? I'd have my son-in-law ask them." He ended with some descriptions of his trip that made his late-night jokes in St. Petersburg seem all the pluckier. Watch below. Peter Weber

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up