Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart give Trump the equal time he asked for on The Late Show
After a monologue ripping Donald Trump’s very bad, no good, egotistically duplicitous and racist weekend, Stephen Colbert decided enough was enough. Sure, Trump has, in the past few days [consults notes]: mocked Puerto Ricans’ accents while millions of American citizens on the island are digging out from a devastating hurricane; tossed paper towels to Puerto Rican hurricane victims like Immortan Joe deigning to turn on the water for 30 seconds; followed up on the supervillain vibe by groggily hinting to reporters that his smiling photo-op with military leaders was “the calm before the storm;” told immediately debunked lies about a U.S. senator after Bob Corker (R-TN) said the White House under Trump is “an adult day care;” claimed to have invented the word “fake;” repeated his “locker room talk” defense on the one year anniversary of the Access Hollywood tape where he bragged about sexually assaulting women; and [scans list again] went golfing and sent Mike Pence on a taxpayer-funded race-baiting PR stunt to fake storm out of a Colts game in order to appeal to his bigot base while those people in Puerto Rico are still without drinking water or electricity.
Still, as Colbert notes, Trump also found the time to complain about how badly the media is treating him, and especially those mean “unfunny” late-night hosts like Colbert. (Colbert noted that, although Trump still uses quotation marks like a half-bright grade schooler who’s just discovered them, he’s pretty sure Trump is sincerely stating that he thinks said hosts are not funny, even though his wonted quote-work makes his tweet seem ironic.) Regardless, Colbert thanked Trump for the shout-out and, noting that Trump’s call for “equal time” on TV (even though the election is over and he has no fucking idea what he’s talking about) is worth a shot, brought out his former boss to provide the counterpoint to some more Trump-bashing jokes. Jon Stewart, still sporting his retirement beard and t-shirt, rolled out to huge applause from the Late Show audience, mic stand in hand, and attempted to stick up for Trump with some of the “both sides” fairness that Trump himself only reserves for neo-Nazis. Pro that he is, Stewart did his best, although that his go-to defense of Trump was “He’s not a cannibal” probably isn’t the full-throated backup Trump was calling for in his totally presidentially tweet-whimpering about how comedians are so mean to him. Unfortunately for Trump, even his champion couldn’t keep his shit together when faced with that whole “calm before the storm” thing while his cabinet is sprinting around pretending that a ranting babyman isn’t trying to start WWIII in North Korea. “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?!,” Stewart exploded, before launching into one of those Daily Show rants that Trump has been spared since Stewart’s retirement. Be careful what you ask for, Donnie.