Late-night hosts covered this week’s latest bombshell Epstein and Trump revelations and spoke about the president’s latest interview with Laura Ingraham.
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert spoke about the government shutdown likely coming to an end after “an historic impasse” (the shutdown later did end) and Democrat Adelita Grijalva being sworn in as a member of Congress, seven weeks after she won a special House election in Arizona.
Colbert said she has been “reborn from the ashes” and will be the 218th and final signature needed to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
He joked that on her first day she was shown around and told “down there is the room where you’re going to topple the pervert cabal”.
This week saw some new emails from Epstein released which suggest Trump knew of his conduct. “What a shocking, shocking revelation,” Colbert deadpanned.
He joked that it was “like that moment in The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis appears on screen and you’re like I get it, he’s the guy on the poster”.
Colbert said it was inevitable that Trump was aware, adding: “They were best pals and underage girls was Epstein’s whole thing.”
It was “not the only damning email”, with one sent around Trump’s 2015 run showing Epstein suggest possible ways to answer questions about their friendship.
Colbert said it’s “never a good sign when Jeffrey Epstein is trying to help you draft a response”, comparing him to a “perverted Clippy”.
He joked that when “reached for comment, Donald Trump bulldozed the West Wing”.
Republicans claim Democrats are cherrypicking the emails, so they released 20,000 additional documents but that “doesn’t prove anything”.
He went on to talk about another odd item this week. “I don’t know if we’ll ever forget the insanity of the Trump presidency, and Trump wants to make sure that we can’t possibly,” he said.
This week saw the reveal of a one-dollar coin depicting Trump to celebrate the 250th birthday of the US. “Pick someone who was there when it was founded, like Joe Biden,” Colbert joked.
He also spoke about Trump’s “big stupid ballroom” and how he has been doing “extreme home makeovers all over the White House”.
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers also spoke about how Trump is “turning the White House into a pharaoh’s tomb” with the “kind of decor you see in a restaurant where they have a fish tank in the waiting area”.
He joked that it’s “probably the next thing Trump’s gonna add to the Oval Office”.
In an awkward new interview with Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham, “Trump is talking out of his ass” when stumbling over the specifics of the renovation, Meyers said.
“This is what Trump was focused on while his government was shut down,” Meyers said. The president was “wandering around the White House like a property only child”, the host joked in reference to the Property Brothers TV show.
He then moved on to Epstein and spoke about the emails, which reporters say have raised new questions about their friendship.
“They raise new questions?” he said. “To me it sounds like they answer old questions.”
