Hours after the New York Times published a late-night bombshell report on Donald Trump’s 1995 tax filings—in which the presidential candidate claimed a $916 million loss—the campaign was in full damage-control mode. But its line of defense was a curious one. Essentially, surrogates like Rudy Giuliani argued that Trump was a “genius” for (apparently) evading income tax payments over an 18-year period.
Stephen Colbert initially seemed to agree with that sentiment, if not the reasons behind it, on Monday night: “Only a genius can lose a billion dollars running a casino!” But after some rethinking, the Late Show host decided that the majority of the credit should probably go to Trump’s accountant, Jason Mitnick, instead. Colbert argued that he might even be more fit than Trump to run the country, given what we know now: “There’s just something about ‘Mitnick’ that sounds presidential.”
