Stephen Colbert breaks down Alan Dershowitz's 'crazy, corrupt argument'
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert unpacked what many think could be the final days of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, as “the Republicans are trying to wrap it all up in time to not learn anything.”
On Wednesday, senators submitted handwritten questions to the arguing teams. One asked Trump’s defense team why a quid pro quo mattered, eliciting a shocking response from Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. “Dershowitz previously gave us the crazy theory quid pro quo isn’t impeachable,” said Colbert, and “today he rolled out his sequel: it might be good.”
Dershowitz argued that politicians believe it is in the public interest for them to be elected, and “if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
“Let me get this straight,” Colbert said. “He’s saying that if a politician believes their re-election is in the public interest – and he just said all politicians believe that – it naturally follows that anything they do to get re-elected is fine. That seems like a crazy corrupt argument.”
Colbert continued: “Searching through the logical turd Dershowitz just pinched out in the Senate well there, it’s hard to find the largest corn kernel of logical fallacy. But I would argue it’s this: his justification why any quid pro quo with a foreign government to manipulate our elections would be fine” is, to quote Dershowitz, “your election is in the public interest.”
“No it’s not!” Colbert retorted. “Only the public gets to decide what’s in the public interest, not the politician. It’s we the people, not you the douchebag.”
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah also unpacked a day of “questioning” in the Senate, which was basically senators just asking “questions to their own side that gave them another chance to repeat their talking points”, he said. “Democrats asked: Donald Trump is guilty, isn’t he? And Republicans asked: what is it that makes Donald Trump so innocent and handsome?
“But there was one moment from the trial that caught everyone’s attention,” said Noah. That would be Alan
Dershowitz’s assertion that anything the president does is in the public interest, and therefore fine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally arrived,” said Noah. “First it was: there was no quid pro quo. Then it was: maybe there was a quid pro quo but it was to help the country, not Donald Trump. And now it’s: Amen, the Donald gonna do what the Donald gonna do, you little bitch asses need to shut the hell up.
“Just to be clear: the Trump team’s argument is now that anything Trump does to get himself re-elected is fine because his re-election in his mind is good for the country and then it’s not impeachable,” Noah said. “Anything. Yeah, so Trump can collude, Trump can obstruct, and it’s all good.”
Noah then took a handwritten question, Senate-style, addressed to Dershowitz. “It says, uh … get the fuck outta here!”
Samantha Bee
“If you’re tired of all the sad, scary impeachment news, now there’s another story we can be sadder and scareder about,” said Samantha Bee on Full Frontal. That would be the coronavirus, which is rapidly spreading in China as thousands are infected and millions quarantined. “The only way China could be locking down cities any harder would be if the coronavirus were protesting for Hong Kong’s independence,” Bee joked.
The real focus should be on the people facing the direct impact of the virus, Bee said, “but since America is basically the drunk single sister at the wedding who has to make everything about herself, fine, let’s make it about us”. The Centers for Disease Control has been monitoring over 100 people in the US for coronavirus, and maintains the threat is minimal. “The good news is, the CDC is working hard to contain and study the coronavirus,” said Bee. “The bad news is that same CDC has lost a dangerous amount of its funding.”
In recent years, the CDC has scaled back work in dozens of countries based on budget cuts; it cut efforts to prevent outbreaks in foreign countries by 80% in 2018. “Despite the obvious benefits to funding an agency that prevents a zombie apocalypse, the Trump administration’s budget proposal actually recommended another 10% cut to the CDC’s funding,” said Bee. “How does a notorious germaphobe cut the budget of an agency that fights infectious diseases? Just tell Trump the CDC needs the money to keep him from catching whatever necrosis is making Rudy decompose.”
The Trump administration plans to cut another $30m this year, said Bee, “and as with every issue in America, the ones who will be hit hardest are the poor and people of color, who often don’t have hospitals in their area or access to healthcare at all.”
Ultimately, “we don’t know if this coronavirus will be the next big pandemic, but we do know that another pandemic is inevitable,” Bee concluded. Thus, “we need to get our shit together and better fund the CDC so that all of us can survive … until the partisan civil war that will immediately follow the 2020 election.”