Stephen Colbert

On Thursday’s Late Show, Stephen Colbert discussed the day’s big news out of Washington: the House vote to formalize the impeachment process against Donald Trump, which means America is “one step closer to getting Trump out of the White House”. The resolution passed 232-196, led by Colbert’s guest of the evening, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi. No Republicans supported the measure, leaving Colbert to wonder: “Are they just complaining about process with those zero votes? Or are they really so lacking any honor that they are willing to publicly state that blackmailing a foreign government to interfere in our election is OK?”

Earlier Thursday, a reporter asked House Republicans, led by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, if they were willing to go on the record that the president did nothing inappropriate. “Very clear, yes,” McCarthy answered.

Colbert had a follow-up question: “The Titanic just hit an iceberg; the captain is saying, ‘It was a perfect iceberg, now we can make all the Slurpees for everyone,’ and he’s asking you all to handcuff yourself to the port side rail and swallow the keys. Are you all willing to do that?”

“Very clear, yes,” McCarthy says in the replayed clip. “Good to know,” Colbert nodded.

The Republican congressmen who vehemently opposed the impeachment process vote “have a small problem”, said Colbert. “It is – what’s the word? – evidence. We keep getting more and more of it.” On Thursday, it was revealed that immediately after Trump’s 25 July phone call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a witness to the call, Lt Col Alexander Vindman, reported his concerns to a White House lawyer. That lawyer then moved the record of the call to an unusual, top-secret server.

In other words, “it’s a cover-up!” said Colbert in the style of the Price is Right. “He’s won an all-you-can-televise impeachment hearing, a trial in the world-famous Capitol building and a free helicopter ride out of Washington on Marine One. Marine One: ride away in shame in style.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers also took a closer look at the House’s impeachment vote, which left Trump and his allies “freaking out”. Trump was so “wildly grasping at straws” about the vote, according to Meyers, that on Thursday morning he merely tweeted: “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!”

“Yeah, we did,” said Meyers. “That’s how we found out about the crimes you committed. Trump’s like a bank robber who screams: ‘Watch the tape!’ And the jury watches the tape and it’s just him smiling straight into the camera holding up a bag of cash.”

Several Republican congressmen spoke in defense of Trump – or, more accurately, as Meyers noted, spoke in confusing opposition to the impeachment inquiry process. The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, for example, demanded the American people ask questions of history in a speech Meyers summarized as: “History will write this moment and then history will ask you a question so you want them to ask the historian a question and then answer the questions themselves?” His reasoning “sounds like you asked Siri to read a quote from Alexander Hamilton after spilling water on your phone”.

The House vote allows for more witnesses to be called for public testimony, including the former national security adviser John Bolton, who contentiously left the White House in September. Since then, tensions have escalated between Trump and Bolton, “but the best part is these are all awful guys”, Meyers said. “Bolton’s an unrepentant warmonger, Trump of course is Trump, so it’s fun to watch them turn on each other and try to take each other down.

“I don’t like watching nature shows where a lion kills a baby antelope but when they show a spider and a scorpion going at it, I am in.”

Jimmy Kimmel

In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel took the stage dressed as an orange circus peanut for Halloween. “I think I said I wanted to dress the same color as the president’s face and this is what happened,” he said of the costume.

“It was not a happy Halloween for the Sour Patch Kid in the Oval Office,” said Kimmel. The House voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry, “which means … I don’t know what it means”, Kimmel admitted. “It means it will go to the Senate, and Republicans in the Senate will do nothing about it, and he’ll say he won, is probably what it means.”

Still, Trump was not happy, tweeting that the impeachment inquiry was the greatest witch-hunt in American history on Halloween, and “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!” – “which, this is like Lori Loughlin saying, ‘Check my kid’s SAT scores!’” said Kimmel.

No House Republicans voted in favor of the impeachment resolution, and the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, blasted Democrats for “taking a vacation from the needs of the American people”.

“In other words, instead of wasting time on this, you should be sending over more legislation for me to kill,” Kimmel explained. McConnell, Kimmel noted, is sitting on more than 100 bills right now – “he uses them to nest his terrarium”.