The late-night shows all did segments and openings about Charlottesville last night. Jimmy Fallon chose to make a cold-open statement at the top of the show, while Stephen Colbert kept his traditional opening, with music, where he talked about the events of the weekend:
Colbert took Donald Trump to task for refusing to explicitly rebuke Nazis, white supremacists, bigots and racists by name.
But you know what everyone’s talking about today? Colbert’s interview with Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci. Colbert was supposed to have an exclusive with The Mooch, but The Mooch did the interview rounds over the weekend so Colbert’s exclusive wasn’t really all that exclusive. Here’s Part I & Part II, where The Mooch talks about how saying “Nazis are bad” shouldn’t be all that difficult, but the Mooch also says that the Trump he knows is “super-compassionate.” The conversation then turns to Steve Bannon and the people around Trump. The Mooch says that yes, he would fire Steve Bannon.
Here’s the thing… The Mooch is deplorable, obviously. He thinks he’s the slickest con man in the history of slick con men (much like Trump views himself). But I also think the Mooch is fundamentally a showman (much like Trump views himself) as opposed to some white supremacist policy guy. What I’m saying is that I actually miss the Mooch a little bit. He brought levity to the fascistic situation.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Trump is racist. His sycophants can dance around that all day long, and it won’t change it. Trump has shown us who he is time and time again. Trump has Bannon in his administration because they are birds of a feather.
“Super-compassionate”, my ….
‘arse’ there said it for you… 🙂
Yes. He is a white supremacist, full stop. The media and others need to stop saying, “but if he only knew more about racists, he would not want their support, blah blah.” David Duke was right (sad to say he is right about anything)–the racists in this country and in Russia put the big bucks behind Trump, and they want the payback now. Trump is happy to comply, of course, because HE IS ONE OF THEM!
I *love* Colbert but am really disappointed he gave the Mooch a platform here. Don’t forget- just because he got fired before he could do damage doesn’t mean he wasn’t intending to do damage.
Kaiser, I wish you had mentioned Seth M’s cold open last night about the events in Virginia, followed by his satirical “A Closer Look” segment on the same subject. I thought it was pretty terrific.
Yes, it was.
Seth’s opening monologue was fantastic about the events in Virginia and Trump.
He said pretty much what I expected him to say – nothing much.
I’m actually really disappointed that Colbert did this. This guy is a con man and I’m not sure why he gave him a platform to puff himself up and act like everything is just a big joke. This wasn’t some hard hitting interview – Scaramucci just wants air time to make himself look good and hear himself talk and allowing this interview makes it look like Colbert supports it and thinks it is funny.
I’m conflicted about this one. I think had the mooch said anything off the rails Colbert has the know how to check him. However this was kinda fluff. Not sure I like it
As a long time Colbert fan, I was a bit worried when he went to network he would lose his edge…clearly, I had no reason to fear. Giving mooch a platform? Eh, more like sunlight as disinfectant. While never rude, Colbert highlighted the absurdity/hypocrisy of this “front stabber” who was backstabbed for all to see…and you KNOW drumpf is FURIOUS that he trashed pres Bannon, so yeah, let mooch loose. I think mooch got caught up in trying to get Colbert’s approval/applause & went way farther than he wanted- sad! Colbert’s open was fantastic- empathetic yet unequivocally scathing to drumpf & his deploarables…many sides…this is not KFC Mr pres!
What I got out of this was he confirmed the WH had a lot of backstabbing (well oiled machine my ass) and Bannon is bad news. Realistically I don’t think this would have been a hard hitting news type segment. Colbert did get his zings in whenever he could.
I see that Mooch turned down his showmanship in this interview. He was off the handle bombastic in the WH.
Colbert has filled by John Stewart void. I love his show. I found The Mooch interview underwhelming and it gave me hope that The Mooch will slowly fade away. The Mooch is a one-trick pony.
Ah, the Mooch. He didn’t even get to be the flavor of the month.
Flavor of the week??
Sideshow Mooch.
I had higher expectations for this interview, but tbh, I think they brought him on because he was the “big news” at the time they announced his interview. Of course, that got superceded by the events this weekend, so….
Tbh, the best interview that Stephen Colbert ever did on his show as the one he had with Donald Rumsfeld. I don’t think Rumsfeld was expecting to be taken to task in the way that he was, and I was really impressed by how Stephen Colbert snuck in the difficult questions and (in my view anyway) cornered that war criminal within the tangle of his own lies. You could tell that, in spite of the veneer of civility, Colbert wasn’t very interested in being nice to this man, and I was actually really happy with that.
Is his little soldier saluting in that first picture?