Stephen Colbert grins his way through the news of Robert Mueller's Trump campaign indictments

Stephen Colbert declares indictment Monday Christmas in October
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Late Show With Stephen Colbert)

Monday was an outwardly calm but inwardly tumultuous day at the White House after President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and a top aide turned themselves in after being indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a third campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, was revealed to be cooperating with Mueller's team. At The Late Show, Stephen Colbert was all smiles. "Now I know it's almost Halloween, but it feels more like Christmas," he said, trying out a series of Trump-Russia collusion Christmas carols.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was less impressed, telling reporters that the "real story" was Hillary Clinton's ties to Russia. "My God, of course," Colbert said. "Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia to lose the election! But we never saw it because we were playing checkers while she was playing 3-dimensional lose the election." He gleefully played the "fake news" card on the Trump campaign's repeated insistence that it had no knowledge of any attempts to coordinate with Russia, citing the "Papadopo-damning" details of the guilty plea from Papadopoulos.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

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.