Stephen Colbert’s vacation last week meant that he missed the opportunity to jump on the covfefe train, the stream of memes and mockery that followed the president’s late-night Twitter typo that took over the internet after it lingered, uncorrected, for several hours. Colbert noted that Trump followed up the tweet with a rare moment of apparent self-awareness.
“See? It’s just fun!” said Colbert, upon the Late Show’s return Monday night. “It’s not a mistake! He’s in on the fun! What a hilarious jokester! It’s a great follow-up to everything he does that makes no sense.”
That “everything” includes the Justice Department’s revised version of Trump’s executive order restricting travel to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries, which it is avoiding calling a “travel ban.” Trump flatly refuses to stop using the term—even though the order’s legality might literally depend on him not using that phrase—and even criticized the language of the new version. “Mr. President, you can’t criticize the Justice Department. You control the Justice Department,” said Colbert. “To quote third-grade boys everywhere: ‘Why are you hitting yourself?’ ”
Another hilarious, covfefe-style mishap we can, as the president might say, “enjoy”? Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement in spite of bipartisan support for the accord from the American people. “At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?” asked the president in his speech explaining the withdrawal.
“I know that one,” said Colbert. “Jan. 20, 2017.”
