The opening credits of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert featured a very special guest Tuesday night. Each time the announcer mentioned one of the night’s guests, Donald Trump popped up in the corner to give the same rejoinder he hurled at Hillary Clinton throughout their first debate: “Wrong!”
During the show, Colbert returned the favor by fact-checking Trump’s debate performance. “Trump had some problems with the truth last night,” the host said, noting that one tally caught him lying 34 times compared to four times for Clinton.
“A lot of people said Trump didn’t seem prepared,” Colbert said. “Possibly because he was not.” As had been reported over the past few weeks, Trump’s advisers felt it was a “waste of time to try to fill his head with facts and figures.” As Colbert put it, “There’s no room in there, it’s already full of ethnic slurs and different wife names.”
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Trump also spent the hours after the debate blaming his microphone for his poor performance. “Yes, there was clearly something terribly wrong with his microphone,” Colbert conceded. “I mean, who left that thing on?”
“While people didn’t necessarily like what Trump said, he wants credit for what he did not say,” Colbert said, playing a series of clips in which the candidate congratulated himself for not bringing up Bill Clinton’s “indiscretions.” Trump claimed he didn’t feel comfortable doing it with Chelsea Clinton in the room.
“Yes, how gracious,” Colbert said. “I’m sure Chelsea hasn’t heard about that stuff yet. It makes me wonder what else… what else have they kept from their child? Has she heard about the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus... having sex with her father?”
