Stephen Colbert on Trump’s supreme court defense: ‘That is dumb’
Late-night hosts recapped oral arguments for the US supreme court case on whether or not Colorado can remove Donald Trump from its ballot, citing the constitution’s insurrection clause. “This is an historic, monumental case,” said Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s Late Show. Such a big deal, in fact, that people lined up for hours ahead of time just to get seats in the viewing gallery. “Though evidently one guy was just in line for an Apple Vision Pro,” Colbert quipped.
Arguing the case for Trump is the former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, who has a reputation as a tough litigator. As one former colleague told Politico: “He has a strong conviction for what he thinks the law is.”
“Actually, not the best compliment you could give,” Colbert mused, comparing it to someone saying, “Oh yeah, this guy is a great surgeon. He will definitely remove what he thinks is your appendix.”
In their written arguments, Trump’s lawyers pinned their hopes mainly on semantics. For instance, Mitchell claims the insurrection clause of the constitution applies only to people who took an oath “to support the constitution”, but presidents swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the constitution, without the word “support”.
“Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I wear a suit professionally,” said Colbert. “So I feel qualified to say that that is dumb. It’s like saying, ‘honey, I know I swore till death do us part, but we never said whose death. And I personally think me banging my pilates instructor is what Queen Elizabeth would’ve wanted.’”
The same lawyers also argued that the 14th amendment says people who engaged in an insurrection cannot “hold” office, but does not bar them from running for office. “But the point of running for office is to hold office!” Colbert exclaimed. “Unless you’re Nikki Haley – we’re not sure what her point is.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers also looked into the supreme court’s oral arguments, where it seemed most justices were supportive of Trump and skeptical of the decision to remove him from the ballot in Colorado. “Which was expected,” said Meyers, “given that Trump appointed three of the justices on the court and another three are staunch conservatives like Clarence Thomas, who is somehow still involved in this case despite the fact that his wife Ginni Thomas played a role in the January 6 coup attempt.”
Ginni Thomas personally pleaded with electors to switch their votes and texted Trump’s chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, urging him to overturn the results.
“Not only should Clarence Thomas recuse himself from this case, Ginni Thomas should recuse herself from texting on her phone,” Meyers said.
As for the hearing itself – “for the most part, the court avoided getting into the actual facts of what happened on January 6,” Meyers explained, “and the justices didn’t seem especially interested in litigating the question of whether Trump had actually engaged in an insurrection, although at one point Trump’s lawyer conceded something pretty eye-opening.”
That would be that the events of January 6 were violent, criminal and wrong – “this was a riot”, said Mitchell. “It was not an insurrection. The events were shameful, criminal, violent, all of those things, but did not qualify as insurrection.”
“Something tells me Trump isn’t exactly going to be thrilled with that argument,” said Meyers. “It doesn’t really fit on a baseball cap – ‘shameful, criminal, violent, but still eligible!’”
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel poked holes in Trump’s legal defense. “Here are his two primary lines of defense: number one, it wasn’t an insurrection. And number two, I didn’t cause the insurrection,” he explained.
In a speech addressing the hearing, Trump blamed the insurrection attempt on Nancy Pelosi. “That’s right, Nancy Pelosi cooked up a secret plot to have a bunch of Maga morons break into her office and poop into her desk,” Kimmel deadpanned.
Trump also claimed the mob on January 6 stormed the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” – “yes, and then his followers tried to peacefully and patriotically kill the vice-president of the United States,” said Kimmel.
In other news, Ted Cruz proposed legislation that would allow lawmakers to get a private security escort and expedited screening at airports. “Sounds to me like somebody just booked an all-inclusive snorkel trip to Sandals,” Kimmel laughed.
Cruz argued that there are serious security threats facing public officials – “like people getting photos of you fleeing your state during a major power outage to get some sun on your big old nipples, that kind of stuff”, Kimmel joked. “I think Ted Cruz is worried somebody will get a picture of him taking his shoes off at security and everybody will find out he has hooves.
“It’s pretty great the guy who’s always screaming about people sneaking across the border doesn’t want us to know when he’s sneaking across the border,” he added.