Stephen Colbert kicks off his Russia Week with a recap of Don Trump Jr.'s Russia troubles

Stephen Colbert dings Don Trump Jr. — (Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show With Stephen Colbert)

The Trump White House has branded the next few days Made in America Week, but on Stephen Colbert's Late Show it is officially Russia Week.

The first of his five field pieces from his trip to Russia were coming later in the show, Colbert said in his monologue, but "meanwhile, back in the United States, Russia. Folks, things are not looking good for the president's son and store-brand Billy Baldwin, Donald Trump Jr.," thanks to the meeting he took a year ago with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer and a former Soviet counterintelligence agent. "Of course, when it comes to Don Jr., there's not much intelligence to counter," Colbert added, unkindly.

Trump Jr. originally said he met with just the lawyer, then the spy-turned-lobbyist said he was at the meeting, and it next emerged two more people whose identities are unknown were also present, for a total of six people at the meeting, Colbert said. "Six! That's more people than are currently working at Trump's EPA." And then it turned out there were eight participants, five of them Russians. "This is the first time a Trump has lied about having a smaller crowd size," he said.

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"Keep in mind, Don Jr.'s defense this entire time has been that he wanted to collude with Russia but got nothing, therefore innocent?" Colbert said, recapping the shifting stories Trump Jr. has told about the meeting. Colbert ended with a series of zingers about President Trump's new lawyer, Ty Cobb, plus the president's short turn in a shiny fire truck. 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.