After being criticized for his statement on Saturday, following it with a more forceful statement on Monday, and then backtracking everything he said in a press conference today, Donald Trump is facing heat from all sides. His statements earlier on Tuesday returned to his “many sides” stance from Saturday and he played the victim once again, claiming fake news and using the term “alt left” against those who counter protested. The whole thing was ugly and was an example of Trump “going rogue” according to one source.
You GOTTA watch @colbertlateshow tonight. The monologue is straight fire. We rewrote the entire thing in 30 min after Trump's shitstorm.
— Ariel Dumas (@ArielDumas) August 15, 2017
The press conference came shortly before the late night shows started taping for the night, which seems to be the pattern these days, forcing everybody to rush into a rewrite of their show in order to cover the latest craziness. For Stephen Colbert, he and his staff at The Late Show apparently rewrote the monologue in 30 minutes. The result was something should go down as one of the bright spots of Colbert’s tenure on the show.
Colbert goes through the entire event — from the “seventh circle of Hell” — piece by piece, working hard to contain himself while Trump talks about changing history, changing culture, and blaming everything on the alt left and Barack Obama. It’s something that The Late Show host, like most who watched the conference when it happened, seems almost dumbfounded to cover. How did we get to this point and who told the President of the United States that there was anything equal to Nazi when it comes to the events in Charlottesville. Also when did a permit absolve everything?
"I don't agree with the Nazis, but they had a permit for Normandy & the Allies didn't." -Donald Trump https://t.co/0WeIMfTAZe
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) August 16, 2017
Following the monologue, Colbert addressed the growing movement to remove Confederate statues around the country. Instead of continuing his critical path from the monologue, he hands the discussion over to his sketch team and two guys just out to help make those Confederate statues just a little less of a sore sport for everybody. If we could get Robert E. Lee on a waterslide out of all of this, I think I’d be supportive of keeping the statues. Its either that or let the team from Squidbillies have their way with them.
(Via The Late Show)