Stephane Colbert
Stephen Colbert applauded the appointment of a new special counsel in Justice Department investigations of Donald Trump, for potential crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and for his handling of classified documents brought to Mar-a-Lago. The former president, meanwhile, said he was “not going to participate” in any indictment.
“I’m not a lawyer, but I didn’t realize that was one of the options,” the Late Show host said. “Subject does not want to participate in the investigation – ‘your honor, although the prosecution has overwhelming evidence of his guilt, my client pleads: do not feel it.'”
Over the weekend, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, restored Trump’s account, which had been deactivated since January 6. “No, Elon, I’m not going back!” Colbert fumed. “Racism, spelling mistakes, calls for violence, dot dot dots. Do you remember the fucking covfefe? You know what? I’m not going to participate.
The billionaire CEO based his decision on a public Twitter poll, in which Trump’s reinstatement garnered a narrow majority. “So Musk says, based on a 1.8% majority in a completely made-up poll littered with bots, ‘I’m super cool to reinstate a maniac whose last tweets celebrated a violent coup attempt in Capitol Hill’,” Colbert explained. “And in return for this complete moral debasement, the former president said, no thanks,” preferring instead to stick to his beleaguered social media company, Truth Social.
The host then turned to the World Cup held in Qatar“a choice made by Fifa, which is, I don’t want to exaggerate, the most corrupt organization in the history of the world”.
According to the US Department of Justice, Fifa has awarded the tournament to Qatar, a desert country with extreme heat, following a series of bribes. “I’m sorry, I don’t care who hears me – I’m going to get up here on national TV and say this about Fifa every night,” he said, “unless he doesn’t. Turns out Fifa is a sponsor.”
Apart from the heat, Qatar has a atrocious human rights record, persecution of LGBTQ+ people, severely restricted rights for women and a system of forced labor by migrant workers. Fifa has tried to cover up any controversy by assuring that “everyone is welcome” at the World Cup, although the Qatari government has warned LGBTQ+ fans against “public displays of affection” and banned fans to be shirtless during games or in public places.
“No problem, I can’t imagine anyone at a football match going shirtless,” Colbert deadpanned in a photo of a shirtless Lionel Messi.
Seth Meyers
Late at night, Seth Meyers looked at the new special adviser appointed by the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, to oversee the investigations into Trump.
“If you keep a record at home, we are now on our second special counsel to find out if Donald Trump, a notoriously corrupt criminal authoritarian idiot, broke any laws,” Meyers explained.
The new special counsel, Jack Smith, is “obviously and also by name, a serious, badass prosecutor who will follow the facts and not be intimidated,” Meyers said. “Which is the same thing they said about Robert Mueller. Which is cool, I guess, but where did that get us?
“I mean, Mueller outlined 10 different allegations of obstruction of justice, not to mention actual evidence that the Trump campaign openly encouraged foreign interference in the election, and then all Trump had to do was lean into the mic and say, “wrong” and that was it.
Trump has already begun to complain about the nomination, lamenting the “extremely corrupt” Biden administration and its “armed justice department” during a speech at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
The rambling address was broadcast but later dropped by C-Span. “Even C-Span Cut!” Meyers marveled. “It’s the network famous for showing wide shots of empty chairs, and even they were like, ‘This shit is boring.'”
jimmy kimmel
And in Los Angeles, jimmy kimmel mocked the former president’s response to newly appointed special counsel Jack Smith, who “sounds like a guy who would sentence Chewbacca to death.”
While hosting a gala for a conservative think tank over the weekend, Trump described himself as “one of the most honest and innocent people in our country.”
“You have to admit it was funny,” laughed Kimmel.
Meanwhile, despite his reinstatement of Elon Musk, Trump has yet to return to Twitter. “You know how badly you have to fuck up Twitter to get Donald Trump to refuse to go?” said Kimmel.
Trump has sworn he won’t be back – ‘which is a promise he’ll keep until the next time he’s in the bathroom for more than 20 minutes,’ Kimmel said – but Kanye West is back after a similar reinstatement by Musk.
“Between Trump and Kanye coming back, it’s like Elon Musk did a reverse exorcism on us,” Kimmel said. “It’s as if poliomyelitis and measles came back at the same time.”