Stephen Colbert slays Donald Trump for wanting to pardon himself

With President Donald Trump looking into the possibility of giving himself a presidential pardon, Stephen Colbert had a field day blasting him for it.

You know your country is in trouble when the president is trying to “pardon” himself just half a year into his presidency!

Alas, though, that seems to be the boat we are now floating by in. Kicking off his Late Show monologue last night, Colbert spoke about the ongoing scandal involving Russia and the Trump Administration. More and more details continue to come out only making things look worse, despite the sad and unconvincing denials from people like Jared Kushner.

Still, is it just possible that this is all just not as bad as it looks? Is Donald Trump completely innocent of all of these accusations? Well, if he were, as Colbert points out, then perhaps he wouldn’t already be discussing with his legal team how to “pardon” himself. For those unaware, to get a presidential “pardon”, you must first be charged with a crime. Is that what Donald is expecting to happen? “Self-pardoning is a sin,” Colbert warns the president, adding, “How do you think justice went blind?”

Colbert then puts up an actual tweet from Trump, reading, “While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.” The Late Show hosts reminds the president that he’s the one tweeting about it, so what does he mean by “why think of that”?

But what Colbert really gets a kick out of from the tweet is the line “only crime so far”. Pointing that out is really all Colbert even has to do. Should we be expecting more in the future, then? Colbert feels that it’s akin to pleading in a criminal trial, “Your honor, I plead not guilty… so far.”

You can watch the whole bit in the video below.

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New episodes of The Late Show air weeknights at 11:35 p.m. EST on CBS.