Stephen Colbert slyly notes that Trump is probably right he won't benefit from his tax plan

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Late Show With Stephen Colbert)

last updated 28 September 2017

Wednesday was a big day for President Trump, Stephen Colbert said on The Late Show. "In an attempt to get everybody to forget about his recent big failures, he unveiled his next big failure, tax reform." The tax plan cuts rates for the rich and for corporations, but Colbert said Trump had a point when he claimed it wouldn't benefit him, slipping into Trump voice: "It's not good for me. I mean, it's about taxes — I never pay those. Nothing to do with me."

Trump could use a win, because he got spanked in Alabama's GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, with his candidate, Sen. Luther Strange, losing to Stephen Bannon's candidate, Roy Moore. Trump was "embarrassed and pissed," according to aides, but Colbert had some unkind words of not-quite consolation: "Mr. President, don't be ashamed that your candidate turned out to be a loser — your supporters seem to deal with it pretty well." He ran through some of Moore's views on homosexuality and race. "Moore seems like a troglodyte, but he has the soul of a poet," Colbert said, and he read a Moore-penned poem he found so inspiring he fact-checked it.

The loss in Alabama isn't Trump's only worry, Colbert said, reading from a New York Times report that Trump left his Strange rally last Friday griping about the crowd size and second-guessing his decision to wear a pink tie in Alabama. After imagining Trump deciding that his pink tie was the root of his many problems, Colbert marveled at Trump's insistence that Republicans have the 50 votes they need to pass the health-care bill they've dropped due to a lack of 50 votes, but they can't hold the vote now, because there's a senator in the hospital. "There is nobody in the hospital — we checked," Colbert said. 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.