Late-night TV hosts on Thursday addressed the political fireworks that came from James Comey’s hugely anticipated Senate testimony, in which he detailed the events, including multiple in-person and phone conversations with Donald Trump, that led to his firing on 9 May.

“Today the stage was set for possibly one of the most serious hours in recent American history,” The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah began. “The Senate testimony of James Comey.

“If you just woke up from a coma and heard all of this at one time,” said Noah, referring to the elaborate chain of events that led to Thursday’s testimony, “you would be screaming down the street with your ass out in one of those gowns like, ‘How is he still president?!’”

Noah went on: “So today, Comey gave some really impressive testimony, with details on every meeting, every phone call he had with Trump, who, what, where, what facial expressions they had when they spoke, what they smelled like, everything.

“And the reason Comey was able to go into such meticulous detail is that immediately after every single interaction he had with Trump he wrote memos, which James Comey should be awarded for, because he’s the only person who wanted to remember his meetings with Trump. The only question is, why?” Noah asked, airing a clip of one of the day’s most noted quotes, in which Comey affirmed he was compelled to memorialize his conversations with the president because of “the nature of the person” and his concern Trump would lie about the content of their discussions.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. James Comey calling the president liar? How dare you tell us things we already know?” Noah quipped. “We didn’t day-drink for this shit. We want new information!”

Stephen Colbert of The Late Show also joined in on the political theatre. “Everybody celebrates ‘Comey Day’ in their own way,” he began. “We’re kind of traditionalists around here. We celebrated by watching TV and writing jokes as fast as we can.

“Comey opened his testimony by talking about why he thinks he lost his job,” Colbert said, referencing Comey’s opening remarks, in which he stated he “understood he served at the pleasure of the president” but was confounded by the shifting explanations for his firing. Colbert joked: “And then when I read the Russia dossier I saw what gave the president pleasure and I thought, ‘Oh, no.’”

“Of course, this whole thing, including his firing, is really about Russian interference in our 2016 election,” Colbert explained. “The president has called this whole story fake news.” He then cut to clips from yesterday’s hearing, in which Comey reinforced, in unequivocal terms, findings that Russia did indeed attempt to influence the presidential election. Comey added there was “no fuzz” on that.

“The only way there could be less fuzz on that is if that Brazilians hacked us,” Colbert said.



Seth Meyers addressed both Comey’s testimony and the rapid response from Republicans afterward, in which they defended Trump by pointing to his inexperience and unfamiliarity with long-standing governmental protocols.

“So, now we have very clear, damning evidence that the president lied about interfering in a criminal investigation and possibly committed obstruction of justice,” Meyers said. “And yet Republicans have done everything they can to either dismiss or deny Comey’s allegations. For example, New Jersey governor Chris Christie suggested Trump shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Christie referred to Trump’s alleged requests that Comey end the investigation into the former national security adviser Mike Flynn as “New York City conversation”.

“It’s probably just his accent, but New York City conversation sounds like mafia slang,” said Meyers. “Take this guy behind the warehouse and and have a New York City conversation with him. And if that don’t work, open up a Jersey discussion. Worst comes to worst, a Staten Island tête-à-tête.”

“After Comey’s testimony, Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz issued a statement claiming Trump had been vindicated while also claiming Comey had lied about some of his conversations with Trump. But most noticeably, and this is real, in the very first line of the statement, misspelled the word president,” Meyers said, bringing up not just Kasowitz’ gaffe, but also his assertion that Comey’s release of the contents of his meetings with the president amounted to “unauthorized disclosure” of “privileged communications”.



“And then there was House speaker Paul Ryan,” Meyers said, “who tried a version of the Chris Christie defense, saying basically that Trump was too dumb to know that what he was doing was wrong. So wait, the president is just learning on the job? Even at Chipotle you have to shadow someone for a week.”