As expected, Seth Meyers dedicated his “A Closer Look” segment Wednesday night to the “damning new information” about former FBI Director James Comey’s interactions with President Donald Trump following the publication of Comey’s opening statement from tomorrow’s Senate testimony.
“Comey’s opening statement is now public, and it contains some damning and truly bizarre details about Comey’s uncomfortable interactions with Trump,” the Late Night host said. Just the “sheer number of conversations” they had, he explained, was “weird” given the fact that Comey and President Barack Obama had just two personal meetings over the course of his entire presidency. “Trump, on the other hand, would not leave him alone,” he remarked.
While Trump talked to Comey nine times, “to put that in perspective, he’s only talked to [his son] Eric five times ever.” Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to invite Comey to a surprise one-on-one dinner sounded to Meyers less like All the President’s Men and “more like a Lifetime original movie” called “Suspicious Attraction.”
As for the “loyalty” pledge that Trump demanded of Comey, Meyers said it seemed “if nothing else, incredibly awkward.” When Trump asked him for that loyalty, Comey wrote, “I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed.”
“This sounds like a terrible Tinder date,” Meyers said. But the “craziest part,” he added, was the “absurd lengths Trump went to to try to get Comey to pledge his loyalty by essentially playing word games with him.” (Editor’s Note: The Daily Beast’s parent company, IAC, owns Tinder.)
When Comey countered “loyalty” with “honesty,” Trump tried “honest loyalty,” a term on which they finally agreed. “The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect,” Comey wrote.
“Even in conversations Trump is a terrible dealmaker,” the host said.
The portion of the statement that has perhaps gotten to most attention is when Trump called Comey on the phone to tell him that he had not been involved with “hookers” in Russia, asking what he could do to “lift the cloud” of suspicion hanging over his administration.
“Well the first thing you could do is not call people out of nowhere and say I was not involved with hookers in Russia,” Meyers joked.