Stephen Colbert whiffs Trump's big North Korea news but nails Michael Cohen

On Thursday's Late Show, Stephen Colbert walked through the steps leading up to the implosion of President Trump's June 12 summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un — a failure Trump seemed pretty chill about on Wednesday. "Did the president of the United States really just say 'Some day a date will happen?'" Colbert asked. "I would call to complain if that was written inside a fortune cookie." Still, Trump and Kim have no choice but to meet now, Colbert said. "They've already made the commemorative coin marking the occasion of the summit." And since that one was obviously such a prescient success, he added, "here at The Late Show we have received an exclusive first peek of the new coin celebrating Mideast peace. It's just a carton of eggs labeled 'Chickens!'"

If it seemed weird that Colbert didn't mention that Trump has, in fact, called off the summit, that's because the show was clearly recorded Wednesday, as The Late Show copped to in the cold open.

But the troubles of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen are timeless, and Colbert jumped into Cohen's new legal problem with business partner Evgeny "Taxi King" Freidman. Freidman faced up to 125 years in jail, but he cut "a pretty good deal," Colbert said. "You get to stay out of prison plus you don't have to be friends with Michael Cohen anymore."

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

Cohen is also in the news because he was reportedly paid $400,000 to set up a meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Trump. "In this case, Cohen's not Trump's fixer, he's Trump's pimp," Colbert said. "But most disgusting of all is that this seems to have worked." Shortly after Trump hosted Poroshenko last June, "Ukraine's anti-corruption agency stopped its investigation into Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort," he said. "Now, to save Manafort, all Cohen has to do is arrange a meeting between the Ukrainian president and Robert Mueller." Watch below. Peter Weber