Late night hosts puzzle out Trump's 7-hour Jan. 6 call gap, burner phones, and Cawthorn's GOP orgy mess

published 30 March 2022

The Jan. 6 committee is "closing in" on former President Donald Trump, and they seem to have found "a poorly executed cover-up," with seven hours and 37 minutes of Trump's phone records missing from the period on Jan. 6 when Trump supporters were storming the Capitol and we know Trump called GOP lawmakers, Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. The House committee is investigating whether Trump used "burner phones" in that period, and Colbert seemed unimpressed with Trump's denial he's ever heard that term.

Also in Washington, Rep. Madison Cawthorn's (R-N.C.) "claims of cocaine-fueled fiscally conservative flesh pits ruffled a few Republican feathers — which Cawthorn says they use to decorate their Eyes Wide Shut masks," Colbert joked. "I can understand why they're upset: By not naming names, Cawthorn has implicated the entire GOP. I mean, the guy with the orgy and cocaine could be any Matt Gaetz."

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"The unintentional consequence of all of this is to make orgies and cocaine sound incredibly uncool," James Corden said on The Late Late Show. "After a Republican meeting today, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that he's going to have some tough questions for Cawthorn — questions like, 'Where are these parties, exactly? Do you take anything with you?'"

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Reports that Trump used disposable burner phones on Jan. 6 "raised a lot of questions, so the former president released an official statement last night — to announce that he made a hole in one while playing golf," Corden said. "It was a more-than-200-word statement, on official Donald Trump letterhead."

With his totally real hole-in-one description, Trump "finally went North Korean dictator on us, but I'm okay with it — even if it isn't true, these are the kind of Trump lies we can handle," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. The seven-hour gap in Trump's Jan. 6 phone records are not.

Despite Trump's denials, "his former national security advisers, John Bolton, today revealed that he and Trump have spoken about how people use burner phones to to avoid having their calls scrutinized," Kimmel said. "Whenever Trump doesn't know something, he claims to know everything about it," but "when it comes to things he might get in trouble for, all of a sudden he's like, 'Hey, burner phones? I never heard of them. Hookers? What are those?'"

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"Yep, seven hours are missing — even the ghost of Richard Nixon is like, 'I don't think you can do that,'" Jimmy Fallon joked on The Tonight Show.

The Late Show did figure out one of Trump's unidentified call recipients, at least.

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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.