Stephen Colbert crushes just-fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, regrets his replacement

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show)

"Last night was a monumental election that fundamentally shifts the balance of power in Washington, D.C., for years to come — and it is not the top story," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Because today, Trump fired his attorney general, Jeff Sessions." He elaborated with a long Edgar Allan Poe joke. "Now there's some confusion among stupid people as to whether Sessions was fired or he resigned," Colbert said. "He did submit a letter of resignation, but it began: 'At your request, I am submitting my resignation.'"

Trump clearly fired Sessions because he recused himself from the Russia investigation, and Colbert kind of came to his defense: "You can't blame Sessions for recusing himself — it's the only thing that's good that he's ever done. It's like hating Lou Bega for 'Mambo No. 5.'" Colbert gave his stand-in for Sessions a chance to say farewell, then crushed him.

Then Colbert got down to brass tacks. With Sessions out, "who on Earth would be willing to go down in history as the man who stepped in to fire Robert Mueller?" he asked. "Enter new Acting Attorney General and Caucasian M&M Matt Whitaker. Now there is no way to know Whitaker's stance on the Mueller investigation — unless you read his op-ed, 'Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far,' in which Whitaker wrote that if Mueller looks into Trump's finances, it 'could be damaging to the president of the United States ... and by extension, to the country.' And by 'the country,' of course, he means Russia."

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"So Trump just hand-picked a guy who wants to stop the investigation into Donald Trump to be in charge of the investigation of Donald Trump," Colbert recapped, comparing that to a murder suspect choosing his own judge. He used a telling tweet from Whitaker to imagine his first day on the job. 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.