Late night hosts survey how Trump's allies are trying to avoid watching the 'very damning' impeachment case

Late night hosts on Trump allies playing hooky
(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night, The Daily Show)

"Today was the third day of testimony in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump," Stephen Colbert said on Thursday's Late Show. And while the Democratic House prosecutors have laid out "a detailed description of perhaps the greatest abuse of power ever by a U.S. president," they're also "trying to keep it simple." For example, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) "tried to explain why crime is bad" using "the A-B-C's of high crimes and misdemeanors," he said, inspired: "Let me try a simple one! The impeachment 1-2-3s: Trump never 1 the popular vote, he's 2 corrupt to have the job, and 3 years is really enough."

House prosecutors "went through a mountain of evidence today — very compelling, very damning evidence," Jimmy Kimmel recapped at Kimmel Live. "It's nuts, they have everything, this is open-and-shut — which is a problem for Fox News," which "instead of even trying" to defend Trump is just "going with the old 'it's boring' defense." He countered that it would be very exciting to see what it takes to drag Trump from the Oval Office: "I mean, don't you want to remove him just to see that?"

The Late Show had a theory about why some senator-jurors are so restless.

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Sitting quietly "for one lousy day" is "not hard — it's irritating, but it's not hard," Late Night's Seth Meyers chided senators. Meanwhile, Trump keeps "providing more evidence that he's a criminal who's unfit for office," bragging during a press conference "that his side was winning the trial because he was hiding all of the evidence from House prosecutors."

Trump also said "he wishes he could be at that impeachment trial to look his accusers in the face," The Daily Show's Trevor Noah laughed, agreeing with the idea, "because if he's locked up in a room for 12 hours at a time, he wouldn't have time to be doing things like" gutting protections for clean water. "Huh, that's a weird coincidence: A new rollback on water protections will benefit real estate developers," he deadpanned. "And it was passed by a real estate developer who hasn't drank water since the '70s — what are the odds? Why do I feel like all of Trump's policies really just him trying to help himself? Like I wouldn't be shocked if we find out the real reason Trump killed Soleimani was because he gave Trump's hotel one star on Yelp." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.