Late-night hosts returned on Monday after a brief hiatus to address the latest developments in the ongoing probe into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Trevor Noah of Comedy Central began: “Ever since Donald Trump became president, there’s been one question on everyone’s mind: why? What kind of God would do such a thing?

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“No, the other question that’s been on everyone’s mind is: did the Trump campaign collude with Russia?” he continued. “It’s the subject of investigations by the House, the Senate and the FBI. But according to Trump’s people, not only was there no collusion, they barely even know what a Russian is.



“One after another, we keep learning about more members of the Trump campaign who did meet with Russians during or after the campaign. But none of those meetings looked quite as bad as the one we found out about yesterday,” Noah explained, referring to the damning New York Times report that the president’s son Donald Trump Jr met up with a Kremlin-connected lawyer in June 2016 expecting dirt on then candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Now, if you’re looking for evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, this seems like a smoking gun. But Jr has a very different take,” Noah said, detailing Trump Jr’s statement in which he claimed he was promised compromising information about Clinton prior to the meeting but that he ultimately received none.

“That is batshit crazy,” Noah said. “Donald Jr’s defense is that he tried to collude but instead he got Russian-catfished? I don’t care if you believe that Russia colluded or not with the Trump’s. You have to admit that the Trump team excuses make them sound dumber and dumber at every turn. The saddest thing is, for the Trump team, the headlines today could be about America’s role in helping finally drive Isis out of Mosul. Or it could be about the Syrian ceasefire. But once again we’re reminded that in a world filled with Trump enemies, the worst enemy is themselves.”

Stephen Colbert also returned from a break to address the Trump Jr story.

“It is great to be back. I did not watch a lot of news over the Fourth of July week because I like to celebrate my love for this country by not watching what’s happening to it,” Colbert joked. “So, this morning I sobered up and everybody’s still talking about Russia. Here’s the thing: ‘There’s no evidence of collusion or even the desire to collude with the Russians by anyone in the Trump campaign’ was something that was true 48 hours ago.”

He went on: “We learned yesterday that on 9 June of last year Donald Trump Jr met with a Russian lawyer after being promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The meeting took place at Trump Tower and included Jared Kushner and then Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, and proves that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help. So, it’s not a smoking gun, but it is a gun meeting with a Russian bullet about their mutual desire to smoke.

“We’re supposed to believe that during the height of the presidential campaign, on the advice of a guy he met at the Miss Universe pageant, Don Jr said: ‘Hey Jared, Paul, I know you guys are a little busy right now but I need you to come to a meeting.’ ‘With who?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘About what?’ ‘I’m not telling you.’ ‘OK, we’re in.’”



Colbert then went on to explain the different actors pertinent to the June meeting, including Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer with whom Trump Jr, Kushner and Manafort met, and music publicist Rob Goldstone, “an acquaintance from Miss Universe who set up this meeting” and “on the day after Trump’s election posted a picture of himself on Instagram wearing a Russia T-shirt”.

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“Here’s the thing. You cannot talk about the facts of this story without sounding like a crazy person,” Colbert said exasperatedly, “because Goldstone, who set up the meeting, did it at the request of a Russian pop star he manages named Emin Agaralov, who is the son of Aras Agaralov, billionaire Russian oligarch, friend of Putin and sponsor of Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe pageant. Trump even appeared in one of Emin Agaralov’s videos.

“I did not know the fall of western democracy had such a phat beat,” Colbert said after airing a clip of the music video.