It’s been a running story that there’s been a revolving door for staff at the Trump White House, with White House Communications Director Hope Hicks being the latest exit this week, with rumblings that special adviser HR McMasters will be next and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s place being questioned after Kushner’s security clearance was significantly downgraded last week.
After discussing those developments, Stephen Colbert spent the end of his “Late Show” monologue Thursday night discussing somebody who has somehow managed to stick around since Trump took office at the beginning of last year: Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“The guy who’s really upsetting Trump is attorney general and ‘racist Dobby’ Jeff Sessions,” Colbert said, kicking off this segue with a “Harry Potter” joke. “Trump has been angry ever since Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, and today we learned that Robert Mueller is investigating Trump’s apparent efforts to oust Sessions last July. Which is shocking. There’s still somebody in the White House who was there last July?”
On a more serious note, Colbert dove into the latest development in the ongoing feud between Trump and Sessions: a new nickname that references a cartoon character from the 1950s.
“But Mueller doesn’t have to reach back to last July — Trump is insulting Sessions now. Apparently, behind Sessions’ back, Trump calls him Mr. Magoo. A quick note to anyone under 80: Mr. Magoo was a cartoon character 60 years ago, and what was funny about him was he was legally blind. Take a look. Ha ha! He thinks that parrot is a phone!” Colbert said.
“Anyway, Mueller is trying to figure out whether insults like these were an attempt by Trump to ‘publicly shame the attorney general into quitting.’ The jokes on you, Mr. President. You can’t defeat Jeff Sessions with insults. The only way to get him to leave is to answer his riddles.”
Then, Colbert switched to an exaggerated Southern accent to do an impression of one of Sessions’ riddles. “‘What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening? Wrong! The answer is: I do not recall.’”
For these jokes and the rest of Colbert’s “Late Show” monologue from Thursday, check out the video embedded at the top of this post.