Viewers who watch The Late Show weeknights on CBS have heard host Stephen Colbert slam GOP President Donald Trump on a regular basis, but on Thursday, the liberal comedian turned his venom onto a different target: Melania Trump.
Colbert used his monologue to criticize the First Lady for wearing a jacket with the phrase “I really don’t care. do U?” on her back during what the late-night host called “the middle of the worst moral scandal in recent memory -- so bad that her husband backed down for the first time in memory.”
The host began by stating that her trip to a detention center in Texas that housed dozens of illegal immigrant children was made “to try and humanize” these facilities, and she went as the administration’s “most high-profile detainee.”
Of course, the liberal studio audience laughed loudly after hearing that comment.
The comedian then noted: “As soon as she got there, the First Lady cut right to the big question” before showing a video of her stating: “How I can help … these children to reunite them with their families as quickly as possible?”
Colbert responded:
Ma'am, I know how you can help. Unfortunately, it involves speaking to your husband, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
He then turned his attention to the jacket the First Lady wore during the trip. “Today, on her way to show that she cares, Melania wore a jacket that says: ‘I really don’t care. Do U?”
Boos from the audience led the comedian to ask: “That’s what they settled on?!? What was her first choice, a jacket that says ‘womp womp?’”
“When I heard that she was doing this,” Colbert stated, “I thought, ‘Okay, this is what first ladies often do -- go to a troubled area, see the children, show that we care. You can't mess that up.’”
“Guess what?” he asked. “I spoke too soon.”
“Now, before we show you this, please know it's real,” the comedian said. “We checked it so many times because we thought, ‘This has to be fake.’”
He added that the First Lady had “forgotten the most important fashion advice: Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take off that jacket!”
Nevertheless, “the First Lady's spokesperson says: ‘It's a jacket. There was no hidden message.’”
“Right,” he continued, “it's definitely not hidden. It’s right on the back, and I’m gonna guess this is one message she did not steal from Michelle Obama.”
“I’m sincerely curious here,” the liberal host stated. “How many people would get fired for this at a normal White House? One? Five? The entire executive branch?”
Colbert then described the tumult over separating children from families after they illegally enter the U.S. “the worst moral scandal in recent memory, so bad that her husband backed down for the first time in memory.”
However, “people who are supposedly on her side let her get on a plane with a jacket that said: ‘I really don't care. Do U?’"
“For the record, we do,” he concluded.
As NewsBusters previously reported, Colbert isn’t the only person to slam the First Lady’s jacket. Also on Thursday, panelists on CNN tried to divine any secret meaning of the wardrobe choice.
“The First Lady's office is pushing back against reporters who asked about [her] jacket of choice as she boarded Air Force One headed for Texas today,” announced Jake Tapper, host of The Lead. “After today's important visit to Texas,” a spokesman stated, “I hope the media isn't going to choose to focus on her wardrobe.”
Of course, that’s exactly what they did.
When Tapper turned the discussion over to senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson, she declared: “I just don't think it really passes the smell test here” and criticized the jacket as “ugly.”
This incident reinforces the notion that as long as the Trumps are in the White House, any member of the administration -- or the family -- is fair game for left-wing commentators, including Colbert and the liberal “analysts” at CNN.
