Late-night hosts gawk as Trump digs his impeachment hole all the way to China, yanks in Mike Pence

"The Constitution gives the accused the right to remain silent," Stephen Colbert noted on Thursday's Late Show. "And clearly, Donald Trump has never read the Constitution." Everything President Trump "has said for the last 48 hours just makes him guiltier," he added. On Wednesday, Trump "wisely dodged" a question about what he was asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do about the Bidens, but "today, he took that ball straight in the face," admitting to "literally what they're impeaching you for." In fact, he asked a second country to investigate Joe Biden, too, Colbert said. "Just when you think Trump can't dig himself a deeper hole, he literally reaches China."

"It almost seems like he's trying to impeach himself," Jimmy Kimmel said at Kimmel Live. The Justice Department has ordered the Trump administration to preserve notes of his calls and meetings with foreign leaders, but "the House might not even need records" to impeach him anymore, he said. "Rarely during a witch hunt do you see the witch drown herself."

"Today we learned that the vice poodle, Mike Pence, may have got his little paws dirty, too," Kimmel said. Pence and his staff "really don't want to get mixed up in this," he added. "They say if Mike Pence distances himself from Trump any more, Trump might have to make him first lady."

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"Wow, so Mike Pence likely knew about the phone call, had access to the transcript, and personally told Zelensky that he wasn't getting his military aid," Trevor Noah said at The Daily Show. Yes, Pence "does whatever Trump tells him," but his excuse that "he was blissfully unaware of what Trump was really up to" is "weird," it "makes no sense" — and Pence has used it many times before.

"People close to Trump are worried he's becoming more and more unglued — at this point, the only glued parts of Trump are his teeth and his his hair," Jimmy Fallon joked at The Tonight Show. "It's true, he may be losing it. Today he tweeted in all-caps: 'Election interference!' It wasn't a complaint, he just accidentally tweeted his to-do list. He was like, 'My bad, that was supposed to be a DM to Ukraine, China, Australia, and Russia.'" Watch below. Peter Weber