On CBS’s Wednesday night broadcast of The Late Show, liberal host Stephen Colbert used the news about Paul Manafort’s developing legal troubles and possible connections to Wikileaks to joke that President Trump is a cannibal who eats “human flesh,” but only when it is “very well done with some ketchup.”
Colbert made the above comments while mocking Trump for telling The Washington Post in a recent interview that he did not want to speak on the record about Manafort’s case. After reading one short Trump quote about this verbatim, Colbert then embellished what he thought Trump could have said off the record [emphasis mine]:
COLBERT: Trump was asked yesterday whether he planned to pardon Manafort. And listen to what he didn't say:
[imitating Trump]
"Let me go off the record, because I don't want to get in the middle of the whole thing. … At some point, I'll talk on the record about it. But I'd rather not." So, am I gonna help Manafort? Off the record: That's a big fat yes. On the record? Manafort is a very good man I've never met. No collusion. I weigh 239 pounds. And I've never tasted human flesh, unless it's very well done with some ketchup.
Returning to his own normal voice, Colbert began to talk about The Guardian's latest bombshell story suggesting that Manafort secretly met with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London around the same time Manafort was made Trump’s campaign chairman. “If this is true, that means the world's palest man met the world's shadiest man,” Colbert joked.
After noting that Manafort had completely denied the claims in the Guardian story, Colbert turned to covering Wikileaks’s similar response to the British paper. Putting on a stereotypical Australian accent, Colbert once again joked that Trump is a cannibal [emphasis mine]:
COLBERT: Wikileaks tweeted that they were “willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”
[imitating Australian accent]:
I'm so innocent, I'm gonna cut your head off, mate. And I'm gonna feed it to Donald Trump ‘cause he eats human flesh.
In reality, apparently the only TV personality in the world to have eaten human flesh is former CNN host Reza Aslan, who ate cooked human brains as part of a widely-criticized show about the cannibalistic Hindu sect known as the Aghoris. Aslan also drank alcohol from a human skull and allowed members of the fringe group to smear cremated human remains on his face as part of the episode.
A partial transcript of the segment follows below:
STEPHEN COLBERT: Trump was asked yesterday whether he planned to pardon Manafort. And listen to what he didn't say:
[imitating Trump]
"Let me go off the record, because I don't want to get in the middle of the whole thing. … At some point, I'll talk on the record about it. But I'd rather not." So, am I gonna help Manafort? Off the record: That's a big fat yes. On the record? Manafort is a very good man I've never met. No collusion. I weigh 239 pounds. And I've never tasted human flesh, unless it's very well done with some ketchup.
[laughter] [applause]
[back to normal voice]
And Manafort really needs that pardon now more than ever because yesterday, Britain's The Guardian broke the story that, allegedly, Manafort also held secret talks with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy. If this is true, that means the world's palest man met the world's shadiest man.
The Guardian’s -- [applause]
In this article, The Guardian's sources allege “that Manafort went to see Assange around March of 2016… around the time he joined Trump's campaign.” Okay, that looks bad, but only because it is very bad. [laughter]
Manafort denies involvement in the hack and says the claim is “100% false." Assange is fighting back. Wikileaks tweeted that they were “willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”
[imitating Australian accent]:
I'm so innocent, I'm gonna cut your head off, mate. And I'm gonna feed it to Donald Trump ‘cause he eats human flesh.
[scattered laughs]
