Late-night hosts break down a remarkable day in Washington: Pelosis announcement of impeachment investigation into Trump
Stephen Colbert
After a day in which the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, Late Show host Stephen Colbert had two terms for the audience:” Buckle up .”
For two and a half years, the president has rocked the Us administration with numerous self-induced scandals, among other issues:” Russian collusion, blockage of justice, saying Nazis are fine people, being an unnamed co-conspirator to campaign finance violations, lying about the Moscow Trump Tower, stealing money to pay for the border wall, faking the climate with a Sharpie ,” Colbert recapped.
With each of these scandals,” every time, people “ve asked”: is this the thing? Surely, this must be the thing. And it wasn't the thing ,” Colbert said.” But here's the thing: there's a new thing, and it might be the thing .”
That thing- the one pre-empting the formal impeachment investigation- is a snowballing scandal involving phone calls Trump made to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Last week, it was reported that worrying “promises” Trump attained in one phone call inspired an intelligence official to file a whistleblower complaint. Since then, numerous outlets have revealed that Trump allegedly pressured the Zelenskiy to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden- the frontrunner to take on Trump in the 2020 election- and used American military aid to the country as leverage.
” No wonder Pelosi is launching an impeachment investigation- this builds Watergate look like Nixon tried to pass an expired coupon at the Kroger ,” Colbert said.
A fun fact about this scandal,” if the end of democracy sounds like fun to you”, said Colbert, is that the phone call in question occurred on 25 July- one day after the special counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
” So the idea that a foreign power like Russia shouldn't interfere in our elections is the only thing everyone agreed on ,” Colbert explained.” Everyone but Trump, because he just moved one country over .”
” Hello, Ukraine ?” Colbert said, mimicking Trump's voice.” You up? For interfering in our elections ?”
Trevor Noah
” If you thought Trump was unhinged before, I can't even imagine what he's going to be like now ,” said The Daily Show's Trevor Noah on the impeachment investigation.” You better keep your children away from Twitter people, because this thing is gonna be a category 5 tweetstorm- and this one will hit Alabama .”
The Daily Show (@ TheDailyShow)
Trump may have invited a foreign government to meddle in a U.S. election. No , not that one, the next one. pic.twitter.com/ mrEpF0Mz 5F
Noah recapped the bizarre story of the Ukrainian phone call, the whistleblower and perhaps most damningly, the $250 m of military aid to Ukraine that Trump inexplicably delayed.
If true, the withheld aid “would be devastating”, said Noah.” It's an abuse of power, it's extortion and, perhaps worst of all, it's asking a foreign country to meddle in America's election. Which is the one thing that if you're Donald Trump, you should stay away from .”
The Trump administration, Noah remembered, had just gotten over the Mueller investigation into Russia election interference. Immediately trying help from Ukraine” would be like if the day after Michael Jackson got acquitted for touching children, he was like:' Let's celebrate! Slumber party at my house !'”
Trump, of course, has either denied or deflected the accusations with a line of defense Noah characterized as” he ain't done shit”, together with unsubstantiated accusations against Biden and corrupted ties to Ukraine.
There's no evidence to subsistence Trump's accusation against Biden, Noah said,” but even if it did, Trump abused the power of his office to try to dig up dirt on a political adversary “.
Jimmy Kimmel
Tuesday was ” a major news day in the history of the United Country”, said Jimmy Kimmel from Los Angeles on Tuesday night. Pelosi's announcement on the impeachment investigation was especially notable because she had been defying the calls to impeach for so long, but” once again, Donald Trump is doing what he does best: forcing a woman to do something she didn't want to do”, said Kimmel.
” I guess he feels like nothing can stop him now ,” Kimmel said after recapping the week of revelations that rolled into impending impeachment.” He got away with Russia and the election, and it attains perfect sense he would ask Ukraine to help him with the next one .”
It's a lot of drama, Kimmel said, all because Trump is” dumb … he gets on the phone and he can't resist saying stupid stuff “.
Kimmel then reminisced on when Trump once tweeted, in 2014:” Are you allowed to impeach a chairperson for gross incompetence ?”
” Well, we're about to find out ,” Kimmel replied.
Read more: www.theguardian.com
