On Monday night, Stephen Colbert devoted the majority of his Late Show monologue to President Trump’s paranoia over the leaks coming out of his administration.
“Donald Trump is obsessed with his staff leaking information. You know how I know that? His staff leaked that information to The New York Times,” said Colbert. “And Trump is now determined to stop it at all costs. In fact, ‘West Wing aides are instructed to drop their phones into small storage lockers when they come to work,’” said Colbert, quoting from the Times.
“Wait a second: They’re taking away the phones of everyone except Donald Trump? How does that work? How does that help? That’s like saying, no one can bring knives to work—except you, O.J.,” cracked Colbert.
The comedian, referencing the same Times piece, said that Trump “thrives on a sense of dominance and control of his environment” including having “a longtime fear of having his food contaminated.” “Yes, and for good reason. Once he was eating what he thought was a safe meal and he found a vegetable in there,” Colbert joked.
But in that same Times article, sources described how Trump was such a big leaker during the campaign that staffers took to calling him the “leaker-in-chief.”
“More like leaker-on-sheets!” exclaimed Colbert. “Damn you, Satan! Get behind me!”
Colbert then threw to a clip of Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson discussing how, when he hosted the sketch-comedy program during his campaign, Trump faked a phone call during a table read and subsequently told the room that his book, Crippled America, had gone to No. 1 (it never did).
Cue Colbert: “It was like Moscow: Trump just sat there while someone else went number one.”