Late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Rudy Giuliani’s appearance on Fox News, in which he contradicted Donald Trump’s statements about the Stormy Daniels fiasco.
Stephen Colbert: ‘The holy water splash zone’
“Trump talked today about how important faith is to other people,” Stephen Colbert began, noting that Thursday was National Prayer Day. Trump said in a speech that “the vice-president and the second lady believe in the power of prayer and the glory of God.”
“They won’t shut up about it,” Colbert joked, impersonating Trump. “I’m with them a lot. I’m breathing in second-hand prayer all the time. I am in what’s called the holy water splash zone.”
Colbert continued: “Trump might want to start praying himself because he’s got some problems. Last night Hurricane Rudy made landfall on Fox News, and Trump may have to declare himself a disaster area.”
Colbert then showed footage from Giuliani’s Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, during which he admitted the $130,000 hush money Michael Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels was “funneled through a law firm” and “the president repaid it”.
“I don’t understand why he would do this,” the host replied, noting that Trump, when asked about the payment aboard Air Force One, said he knew nothing about it. “I’m not a lawyer and I know not to do that.”
Trevor Noah: ‘It’s gonna ruin porn’
Trevor Noah also touched on Giuliani’s interview with Hannity.
“When we last left the story, the official Team Trump version was that Michael Cohen, without Trump’s knowing, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair that allegedly never happened,” Noah said.
“Two weeks ago, President Trump hired his good friend Rudy Giuliani to join his ever-changing legal team,” he explained. “Last night, Giuliani went on TV and flipped the Stormy Daniels payment story upside down.”
After showing the clip of Giuliani contradicting Trump and Cohen’s previous messaging, Noah joked: “Imagine a PR crisis so bad that your best move is to admit you paid hush money to a porn star.”
Noah went on: “Just so we’re all on the same page: everyone pretended Trump had nothing to do with this payment. Now that the FBI has raided Michael Cohen’s offices, they’re probably afraid that the truth is going to come out, so they want to get out ahead of it first, which I totally understand.
“You might be saying why does anyone care how Trump handles his affair. But it turns out, in covering up this affair, they might have broken the law,” Noah said, noting that the payment may have run afoul of campaign finance laws.
“You know what really pisses me off about this?” Noah concluded. “The Stormy Daniels thing was supposed to be the simple scandal in Trump’s story, but now it’s about lawyers and campaign finance and bureaucracy. It’s not just ruining the country. It’s gonna ruin porn.”
Jimmy Kimmel: ‘Boy, did he deliver the goods’
Finally, Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on the Trump team’s mixed messages regarding the hush money payment.
He began: “We don’t have Scandal on Thursday nights any more, so the president has been working overtime to fill that hole for us, and boy, did he deliver the goods for us this week.”
Kimmel said: “Remember how last month a reporter on Air Force One asked Trump if he knew about the $130,000 payment his lawyer made to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about the affair they didn’t have? And he said he didn’t know about it? Well, now he did know about it.”
He added: “Remember how Michael Cohen said he used his own money to make that payment and was never reimbursed by Donald Trump? Well, now he was reimbursed by Donald Trump.”
Kimmel explained that Giuliani ventured “to the warm confines of Fox News to contradict just about every claim his client has made on the subject”, showing footage of Giuliani’s appearance. “The president repaid Michael Cohen for the hush money he didn’t know anything about, which almost makes you think maybe he did know something about it.”
Kimmel said: “He funnelled it, which doesn’t sound suspicious. That’s how I pay all my porn stars – through a funnel.”
Rudy was on a roll, Kimmel said. Giuliani, in the interview with Hannity, revealed: “I don’t burden [my clients] with every single thing that comes along.” He referred to clients such as Trump as “busy people”.
“If I bothered the president every time I made a six-figure payment to a porn star, he wouldn’t be able to watch Fox News 11 hours a day,” Kimmel quipped.
Kimmel also joked about Giuliani’s propensity for landing Trump in hot water. He said: “Maybe hiring [Giuliani] to be Donald Trump’s lawyer was a bad idea. By the end of the week, Rudy Giuliani is going to implicate Trump in the Lincoln assassination.”