While Donald Trump may have churned out a few weird tweets on Thursday, they weren’t unhinged in a new and exciting way, and so Stephen Colbert focused again on the previous day’s Trump tweets in his monologue on “The Late Show” Thursday night.
“You’ll remember — observers of the news will remember — that our commander-in-chief had a hissy fit on Twitter yesterday — 35 tweets over the week or something like that? — and now we know why he’s freaking out,” Colbert said to open his monologue. “Apparently, Trump’s tweet storm came after learning Mueller wants to ask him about obstruction of justice. Why is– [crowd cheers] Sure, go ahead, obstruction of justice fans. I don’t know why Donald Trump is surprised. When the cops wants to talk to you, it’s usually about a crime. ‘Uh oh, they’re pulling me over. Well, they probably just want to know if I’ve checked out season 2 of ‘Atlanta’ yet.’
“Meanwhile — Mueller wants to ask about obstruction of justice but has agreed to limit the scope of questioning and would like to ask questions both written, and orally. ‘You lost me at written. But you got me back at orally.’
Then Colbert got to the biggest news from Thursday with regards to all this: the report that Trump somehow still wants to talk to Mueller.
“But despite the perils, Trump is pushing for an interview with Mueller against his lawyers’ advice. Yes, Trump has said from the beginning that he wants to talk to Mueller one-on-one,” Colbert said. “And his lawyers have said from the beginning, ‘Why did I go to law school? I could’ve been a dentist! I’d rather be up to my elbows in someone else’s spit.’
“According to people close to Trump, Trump believes he can convince the investigators of his belief that their own inquiry is a witch hunt. ‘Mr. Mueller — may I call you Bob? Bob, have you seen my tweets? This one has ‘witch hunt’ in all caps, okay? I rest my case. Do you want to arrest yourself or should I slap the cuffs on you right now?’ And Trump’s still getting legal advice from attorney and man who just realized how he’ll be remembered, Rudolph Giuliani, who called on Mueller yesterday to wrap this whole thing up.”
“The Late Show” then played a clip of Giuliani repeating his daily refrain: “We believe that the investigation should be brought to a close. We think they’re at the end of it, they should render their report, put up — I mean guess if we were playing poker, we’re not — put up or shut up, what do ya got?”
And then Colbert concluded this thread with quite a zinger.
“You better hope you’re not playing poker. Because your client can’t keep a casino running,” Colbert said.
You can watch this portion of Colbert’s monologue from Thursday’s episode of “The Late Show” in the video embedded at the top of this post.