He described it as being as if Steve Beshear, the former governor of Kentucky, were speaking “from your<br />normal, relatable, everyday diner where everyone faces the same direction in terrified silence.”<br />COLBERT: “People who believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat to this nation, to the experiment of democracy, to Western civilization itself, take heart,<br />because for their powerful rebuttal, the Democrats showed a rerun of ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’”<br />None of the other late shows taped after the speech,<br />and Jimmy Kimmel — whose show is also recorded, despite its title — had the most creative way of handling the inconvenience: He declared it a “Trump-Free Tuesday.”<br />Instead, he revisited the Oscars fiasco he had experienced firsthand as the show’s host on Sunday.<br />TRUMP: “We have placed a hiring freeze on nonmilitary and nonessential federal workers.”<br />COLBERT: “Nonessential federal workers — so Kellyanne Conway is out?”<br />TRUMP: “Tonight, as I outline the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited.”<br />COLBERT: “Honestly, I don’t know what we inherited.<br />TRUMP: “With the $6 trillion, we could have rebuilt our country twice, and maybe even three times if we had people who had the ability to negotiate.”<br />COLBERT: “Maybe even rebuild it 10 times, if we had people who refused to pay their contractors.”<br />Mr. Colbert didn’t spare the Democrats’ rebuttal, either.
