Late-night hosts on Tuesday discussed the list of questions, leaked to the New York Times, that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask Donald Trump, as well as Kanye West’s erratic appearance on TMZ Live.
Stephen Colbert
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a lot of things that I’d like to ask Donald Trump,” Stephen Colbert began. “And now I know that Robert Mueller does too, because the succeedin’ New York Times have gotten their hands on all the questions that Robert Mueller wants to ask President Trump.”
“Apparently, in the beginning of March, Mueller’s team called Trump’s lawyers to give them a review of the questions,” Colbert continued. “The lawyers took notes. Then, somehow, those notes wound up at the New York Times.”
The host went on to explain that, while Trump blames Mueller for the leak, a former Mueller assistant says the grammatical errors in the questions prove they came from Trump’s team.
“Trump is furious about this leak,” Colbert added, showing a tweet from Monday in which the president called the release of the questions “disgraceful” and added: “It would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened!”
Colbert replied: “Yes, sir, it would seem hard, but you make it look easy.”
The host then said that Mueller’s question “barely scratch the surface of what I want to know,” offering questions of his own. “Question 50: did you do it? Question 51: but really, though, did you?”
Trevor Noah
Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also discussed the 49 questions the special counsel wants Trump to answer.
“That’s a ton of questions,” Noah joked. “You can’t make Trump read that much. The only things that Trump reads are his Twitter mentions and the Garfield cartoons the CIA slips into his daily intelligence briefings.”
The host went on to note that, of the 49 questions, there are nine about the former national security advisor Mike Flynn, 21 concerning the firing of James Comey, nine about Jeff Sessions and 14 about campaign coordination with Russia.
“I get why Mueller wants to ask Trump these questions, but I think it’ll be a waste of his time,” Noah said. “Because you know that every answer to everyone of these questions is gonna be Trump going, ‘They said I could never get 270 electoral college votes…’”
"Being Trump's lawyer must be so exhausting. He won't listen to you, so you have to launder your legal advice through the TV."
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 2, 2018
-Trevor on reports that Trump’s team leaked Mueller's questions to the press: https://t.co/KNiCYh9it8 pic.twitter.com/HfxdjXIbLf
After reading Trump’s tweet about the leak of the questions aloud, Noah said: “You can tell from this tweet that the president is really mad.” He continued: “First off, because he says none of Mueller’s questions are about collusion, which is not true, because 14 of the questions are about collusion. Second, he’s really mad because he believes Mueller’s team leaked these questions to the press.”
Noah then floated the possibility that Trump’s legal team leaked the questions “so that the news would tell Trump not to talk to Mueller”. He added: “Being Trump’s lawyer must be so exhausting. He won’t listen to you, so you have to launder your legal advice through the TV.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Finally, Jimmy Kimmel addressed Kanye West’s appearance on TMZ Live, during which he attracted controversy for suggesting slavery was a “choice”, an opinion he later clarified on Twitter.
Kimmel began: “Did you happen to see what the president said today? I know I’ve said this before, but I think this might be the president’s most out of his mind moment yet.”
He then showed footage of West’s appearance on TMZ, in which he spoke about becoming addicted to opioids after having liposuction “because I was trying to look good for ya’ll”.
“Wait a minute, that was Kanye West. He’s not president yet, right?” Kimmel joked. “For whatever reason, Kanye felt the need to spend a full hour on TMZ live today to defend his love for Donald Trump and to go off on a tangent not seen since the glory days of Gary Busey on Celebrity Rehab.”
In another clip from West’s visit to TMZ, he said: “TMZ is the hospital to fix the world.” Kimmel replied: “Healthcare really is in bad shape. If TMZ is a hospital, it’s a mental hospital. Kim, it’s time to come get your husband.
“Here’s the thing, though: doing this show every night is hard enough,” the host said. “Keeping up with the White House on a daily basis is exhausting. I can’t handle Donald Trump and Kanye West at the same time. It’s too much. One of you is going to have to stop. I’ll let you decide between yourselves which one it’s gonna be.”
