Stephen Colbert offered a special preview of the redacted Mueller report, in audiobook form, on The Late Show Wednesday.
The cold open featured a fake accomplished actor delivering a dramatic reading of some of the most anticipated moments from the report, such as the firing of former FBI director James Comey and Don Jr.’s infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin lawyer. But each time the actor got to the juicy blanks the Mueller report was supposed to fill-in, Gilbert Gottfried appeared in the recording booth and began screaming, “Redacted!”
Colbert also addressed the impending report in his monologue, cracking that until Attorney General William Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s press conference (taking place at 9:30 a.m. ET today, April 12th), he would be counting his chickens and placing them all in one basket. At the same time, Colbert tried to pour a carton of eggs into a wicker basket, though based on his reaction one of the eggs accidentally hit the ground instead (“I wish the people at home could smell that,” he joked).
Along with the Mueller report, Colbert talked about another potential headache for Trump now that Julian Assange — who’s likely to appear in the report due to his and WikiLeaks’ alleged ties to Russian intelligence — has been arrested and will likely be extradited to the United States. As Colbert noted, Trump was more than willing to proclaim his love for WikiLeaks in 2016 when it was dumping hacked e-mails from Hilary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party. But since Assange’s arrest, Trump has claimed he knows nothing of WikiLeaks, saying “it’s not my deal in life.”
Colbert then busted out his Trump impression, cracking, “I only have one deal in life and it’s with the devil. I got the presidency, he got my soul — what a sucker. Good luck rehabbing that thing, Lucifer.”
