Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed another damning news cycle for the Trump administration, including the Wall Street Journal report that special counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in the ongoing Russia investigation and the release of leaked transcripts from the president’s phone calls with the Mexican president and Australian prime minister.

NBC’s Seth Meyers began: “Donald Trump’s presidency was already in a tailspin before today’s bombshell news that the special counsel has impaneled a grand jury in the Russia investigation.

“As we saw throughout the campaign,” he continued, “Donald Trump’s political career has been declared dead many times, so it’s important not to get ahead of ourselves.”



Meyers went on to explain the Wall Street Journal’s report, which represents a major development in Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

“Trump is probably excited because he thinks a grand jury is just a fancier jury,” Meyers joked, before launching into his impersonation of the president. “‘So beautiful, not like one of those dump juries. Beautiful, gold, 12 chandeliers.’”

The host went on: “As we know, when things aren’t going well for Trump, he tends to retreat further into his alternate reality, a reality where he is beloved by all and the country is faring better than ever before.”

Meyers then discussed some of the president’s more outlandish recent lies, including his claims that the president of the Boy Scouts called him, following his heavily criticized speech at the jamboree, to say it was the best speech ever given to the group.

“Yesterday, we saw another feature of Trump’s alternate reality: the idea that immigrants are pouring into our country and hurting our economy,” Meyers said. “Trump proposed new legislation cutting legal immigration by half and imposing new language requirements on immigrants before they come here. Naturally, this policy was highly controversial, which meant it was time to bring back a Trump spokesman we haven’t seen in a while: that’s right, I’m talking about Stephen Miller.”

Meyers then took aim at the president’s 31-year-old adviser for his particularly abrasive posturing towards the press when discussing the immigration proposal.

“He took to the podium and immediately started fighting with the press,” Meyers said, referring to Miller’s treatment of CNN’s Jim Acosta, the Times’ Glenn Thrush, and his comments about the irrelevance of the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty. “Man, I’m surprised to hear that kind of disdain for a statue from a guy that looks that much like a church gargoyle.”



“Is there anyone more off-putting than Stephen Miller?” Meyers asked. “He looks like a mortician’s ghost. He looks like the guy in a prison movie who’s in for eating his family.”



Stephen Colbert also discussed the latest development in the special counsel investigation.

“Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in his investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign,” he began. “Nobody has ever said this before: ‘God, I wish I had jury duty.’ But I’m available!

“But really, how are they ever going to find unbiased people to serve on this jury?” Colbert asked. “’Ma’am, have you ever heard of a man by the name of Donald Trump?’ ‘No, father never mentioned him in our cave-dwelling cult.’”



Colbert continued: “This news means that the investigation into Russian meddling is kicking up into a higher gear, because grand juries are powerful investigative tools that allow prosecutors to subpoena documents, put witnesses under oath and seek indictments if there is evidence of a crime. So it doesn’t mean there’s going to be a trial, but it’s a strong indication that something is going to happen.”

“It’s like picking up a blind date and the first thing they say is, ‘Hey, I need some condoms,’” Colbert joked. “‘Can we swing by the store? No reason.’”



Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah also got in on the action, saying: “It’s Mueller time. It’s about to go down.”

“Today must suck for Donald Trump,” Noah said. “I just hope that if the police ever do arrest him they protect his head when they put him in the car.

“This Mueller grand jury thing has capped off honestly a terrible day for Donald Trump, because in the beginning it started like this,” Noah said, referring to leaked transcripts of the president’s phone calls with Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico, and Malcolm Turnbull, the prime minister of Australia. He also mentioned that the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has plans to start an investigation into leaks.



“Yes, and we know that Sessions is conducting a leak investigation because that was leaked,” Noah quipped. “Is there anything this administration won’t leak?

“Here’s what Trump actually said to the president of Mexico,” Noah said, before reading the transcript aloud, in which Trump asks the Mexican president to agree not to tell the press his country won’t be paying for the border wall. Trump adds that the wall has created a “political problem”.



“‘They’re going to say, ‘Who’s going to pay for the wall, Mr President?” Trump said to Peña Nieto. “We should both say, ‘We will work it out.’”

Noah concluded: “Mexico’s president was like, we ain’t paying for shit, man.”