Stephen Colbert spins a fine poem out of Trump's shutdown nursery rhyme

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

Stephen Colbert taped Wednesday's Late Show in the midst of a fight between President Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over this year's State of the Union speech. "The situation is chaotic and bitter and confusing — which is actually the state of our union," he said. He ran through Wednesday's standoff, but the bottom line is that Trump had no leverage here. He can't enter the House "unless they invite him in — Congress works on vampire rules," Colbert said. "It's appropriate, because this is sucking the blood out of this country."

So Pelosi "spanked him with a coequal branch" and said no, and Trump hit back by debuting a new nickname for Pelosi, Colbert said, bemused: "Your nickname for Nancy Pelosi is 'Nancy'?" Still up until he caved, it seemed "pretty obvious Trump's going to do something," since the White House had already prepared two versions of the speech, one to deliver in the House chamber and the other somewhere else in the country. "Yeah, but it has to be a location befitting this president's dignity," Colbert said. "So maybe a ball pit at McDonald's or a sand trap or — oh, I know — Red Square." There was also speculation Trump would deliver his speech at a rally, an idea The Late Show turned into a brief commercial.

Trump's poll numbers are "crumbling," Colbert noted, "they're just tanking right now, and he's got his back up against the lack of wall, so this morning, Trump unveiled his plan to win everybody back: a rhyming couplet." He found the last part of the tweet less than inspiring — "You wouldn't buy condoms if their tag line was 'Trojan: Use it and Pray!'" — but he turned the main "Build a Wall & Crime Will Fall" couplet into an entire poem. It's surprisingly poignant. 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.