Late night hosts recap Day 1 of the Trump impeachment hearings

last updated 14 November 2019

"It's finally arrived: The first day of live impeachment hearings," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. "Today's testimony was as dramatic as it was historic. It was the biggest ratings hit for C-SPAN 3 since Drunk History, starring Brett Kavanaugh." The "bombshell today" was U.S. Ambassador William Taylor's new testimony that an embassy "staffer overheard [President] Trump asking about a foreign nation investigating his political opponent," Colbert said. "That's like if they had a picture of [Richard] Nixon breaking into the Watergate."

"This is just unbelievable — Trump's people were discussing their Ukrainian plot in public, in a restaurant?" Trevor Noah marveled at The Daily Show. "Also, why is Trump talking so loudly on the phone that people can hear him on the other side?" Taylor and the other witness, State Department official George Kent, "are devoted, nonpartisan civil servants, so if you hear these guys saying that Trump did some messed-up s--t, you know to take it seriously," he added. "And from the sound of it, Trump did some messed-up s--t."

The Democrats spent the hearing "showing the American people that Trump abused his office by trying to extort Ukraine," Noah said, while Republicans "seemed like they were trying to solve a completely different case," mostly involving Hunter Biden. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) also tried to discredit the hearings and the witnesses for relying on secondhand information — "maybe it's because the White House has blocked all the people who do have firsthand knowledge from testifying," Noah suggested. "But it all backfired when he tried to turn the focus to the whistleblower."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

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.

Jordan getting owned over the whistleblower was "probably the best moment in the hearing today," Seth Meyers said at Late Night, but House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) made the "crucial point" that "Republicans haven't actually contested any of the facts. In fact, they've basically admitted to all of it." What choice do they have? he added. "If we had this much evidence during the O.J. trial, even Johnny Cochran would have been like, 'You know what? The glove does fit, my client's full of s--t.'"

"Today was not a good start for Republicans," Samantha Bee said at Full Frontal. "The Republican attempts to change the subject didn't get very far, thanks to two persuasive witnesses," and Taylor's "huge bomb" appeared to "confirm that Trump knew about the attempt to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens — which is the first time we've gotten hard confirmation of that since Trump himself. This is what these hearings are going to be like all the way through: Every bombshell will just be confirming things we already know."

Jimmy Fallon, dressed as Trump, also recapped the hearings at The Tonight Show, and he even managed to edit Taylor's testimony into something positive. Watch below. Peter Weber

Explore More

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.