Another day, another bombshell. Late Tuesday afternoon, The New York Times’ Michael Schmidt broke the news that, according to a memo composed by former FBI director James Comey, the president had requested that he end his investigation into his campaign surrogate and ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn over his sketchy Russia ties.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump told Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
The revelation had some in Congress pondering whether Trump’s actions were “impeachable” on the grounds of obstruction of justice, seeing as Trump is said to have been meddling in an FBI counterintelligence probe into ties between his own campaign and Russia.
“The news, once again, is focused on President Trump,” said Trevor Noah, opening the latest edition of The Daily Show. “This evening, we just heard that he personally asked former FBI chief James Comey to end his investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his ties to Russia.”
Noah added, “I will say this: I hope the Republicans’ new health care system is good, because I’m getting whiplash from all these scandals.”
After that brief nod to the Comey memo news, which broke shortly after the late-night shows were set to tape, Noah dove into Monday’s big story: that Trump had apparently told national security secrets to the Russians—secrets that were reportedly given to the U.S. in confidence, even shielded from our closest allies, by Israel.
“So here’s what we know: Last week, President Trump met with Russian diplomats and reportedly told them classified information about an ISIS terror plot, and we know that that information came from a foreign ally who did not want the U.S. to share it with the Russians because they know you don’t want Russians in your business,” said Noah.
“How are we not getting this? How are we still confused by this?!” he continued, beside himself. “Nobody wants Russians getting information! It doesn’t matter what the information is. It could be a surprise party that your friend told you about. If you tell the Russians, it’s not going to end well. Your friend is going to wash up on the beach without his head and you’ll be like, ‘But… this had nothing to do with the Russians!’ and the Russians will be like, ‘Why take the risk? You never know.’”