On Wednesday, footage of U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister (and Marvel cover boy) Justin Trudeau, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto went viral following their awkward attempt to shake hands simultaneously. The move spawned the #ThreeAmigos hashtag on Twitter, as well as far too many “secret Illuminati handshake jokes,” but it also gifted late night hosts with plenty of non-Trump material for the week. And Late Show host Stephen Colbert took advantage of that for a minute during his opening monologue on Thursday’s episode.
“That’s a typical threesome,” the late night host joked. “It seems like a good idea at first, but then there’s one guy who doesn’t know where to put his hands.”
The sexualized zinger drew the predictable amount of laughs of whoops from the crowd, though what Colbert prefaced and concluded the bit with was much more like his Colbert Report days. For starters, there was the matter of the Canadian parliament cheering on Obama after his last address in their chambers, shouting “four more years!” One might assume the good-natured cheerers know enough about American government to realize there’s a term limit, but as Colbert quipped, “They really like him! Maybe he can get them to confirm the Supreme Court nominee.”
Throw in a historical joke about Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt trying to do the same (to the tune of The Three Stooges) and eureka! Vintage Colbert.
