Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel ask America: 'Orange you ashamed' Trump 'can't pronounce origins?'
Democrats are about to vote to subpoena Attorney General William Barr for an unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, and last week President Trump said releasing the report would be fine with him, Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. But on Tuesday, he said "the White House will fight the release," and Colbert paraphrased Trump's argument, in Trump voice: "No obstruction, it says so right in the document — and if you try to see the document, I'm going to obstruct you."
Trump continued on about the Mueller report, and Colbert asked viewers to "notice his small slip of the brain." It wasn't hard. Keying off Trump's bizarre malapropism for "origin," Colbert unleashed a series of orange-related puns, then modified a classic knock-knock joke. "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Orange." 'Orange who?" "Orange you ashamed we have a president who can't pronounce 'origins'?"
"And since he was talking, Trump just tacked on a random lie — because, you know, why not?" — about his father, Colbert said. "Yes, it's true, Frederick Trump was born in a very wonderful place in Germany — New York City in 1905."
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"I was kind of hoping I could go the whole week without mentioning President Trump," Jimmy Kimmel said, live from Las Vegas. But then "he had a little bit of trouble with the word 'origin.'" Kimmel had a theory. "What happens is he wakes up every morning, he sees the color of his face, and the rest of the day he has that word stuck in his head. By the way, that wasn't even the weirdest quote of the day," he said, showing Trump's whopper about Fred Trump: "Donald Trump's father was not born in Germany, he was born in the Bronx. Which would mean J.Lo is from Germany, too, I guess. At this point he's just messing with us, right? He's now questioning his own father's birth certificate." 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.
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