



The return of Stephen Colbert at his very best and most biting?

This monologue, from the start of last night’s Late Show on CBS, is a keeper. Colbert forensically unpicked the news that you’ve been too tired or too overwhelmed to process yourself. It was, in total, a brutal takedown of Donald Trump’s first day in Washington, DC, and a warning cry for what lies ahead.

Colbert lambasted Trump’s potential picks for Cabinet posts, and his impersonation of Sarah Palin’s folksy word salad was especially savage. “That’s right: Trump’s plan to drain the swamp of corruption means bringing back Giuliani, Christie, Gingrich, and Palin,” he said. “It makes sense: They’re exactly what I’d expect to find at the bottom of a drained swamp.”

Most disturbing of all, at the end of a long, excoriating monologue, Colbert revisited a PBS Frontline interview with Trump’s black-outreach director Omarosa Manigault, in which she warned that “every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, whoever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

“All hail our glorious leader! Giant hands! You’ve got giant hands! You’re going to be great!” Colbert exclaimed, before adding,” …is what a pussy would say.”