Thursday night was the penultimate night of The Late Show's Russia week, and "my favorite night," Stephen Colbert said. He has been showing reports from his Russia trip all week, but "the piece we're showing tonight is really the whole damn reason why we went," he said. Colbert explained that when his executive producer pitched the idea of a trip to Russia back in December, Colbert thought nobody would still be talking about Russia six months into Trump's presidency. "I was a dummy," he said. What changed everything was the leaked dossier on Trump by a former British spy alleging that Trump has deep financial ties to Russia, that the Kremlin was supporting Trump's campaign, and that other part.
In his New York Times interview on Wednesday, Trump claimed that the dossier was "made-up junk" and "a phony deal," and said he had a witness, Phil Ruffin, to disprove the most salacious detail, involving urination and the presidential suite at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. He showed a photo of Phil Ruffin. "Now, the wildest accusations in that dossier have never been confirmed," Colbert said. "But as far as I know, nobody has tried to confirm them. And here's the reason why: The real news, while reporting on the dossier — your CNNs, your MSNBCs, your Fox's — they said, 'Oh, that's too salacious for us to even look into.' But it's the only part we care about!"
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