On Tuesday, Stephen Colbert called the appointment of Fox News contributor John Bolton as national security adviser the “scariest” move Donald Trump has made to date as president.
Tonight, he aired an exclusive interview with the man himself.
In reality, viewers were just witnessing the latest political impression from Saturday Night Live legend and the man who gave Colbert his first job on television, Dana Carvey.
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The Late Show host introduced his guest by saying he was there to “refute” his image as “unstable warmonger.” When Carvey’s Bolton appeared on screen, complete with a bushy mustache that seemed to be trying to escape his face, he laughed off the sinister reputation.
“It’s very important for me that nobody thinks President Trump has handed the keys to the war machine to some sort of hair-trigger lunatic,” he said. “Because if I heard someone say that I’d blow ‘em up quick!”
Asked if there’s any truth to the rumors that he’s an “unhinged bully,” Bolton said, “Stephen, those stories are not only hogwash and poppycock. They’re also poppywash and hogcock. I’m as soft and tame as General Snowball.” He explained, “That’s the name of my mustache. He’s my closest advisor and a brilliant tactician.”
Over the course of the segment, Bolton’s mustache got progressively larger until it resembled Yosemite Sam’s. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “General Snowball here just gets a bit engorged when he smells a war coming on.”
When Colbert asked him whether the American people need to be concerned about him calling for preemptive strikes on countries like Iran or North Korea, Bolton replied, “I’m a rational man, and reason dictates that whether it’s an Ayatollah, some rogue king of Denmark, or the person taking too long in line at the airport Sbarro, you hit them first!”
“All right, Mr. Bolton, after talking to you—and I can’t believe I’m saying these words—I think you might be more unstable than Donald Trump,” Colbert told him as their interview came to a close.
“Oh, come on, Stephen, I’m not the madman that the media and my words and behavior make me out to be,” Carvey’s Bolton said, before delivering a two-decades-in-the-making callback from The Dana Carvey Show’s 1996 premiere. “I’m a very gentle and nurturing man,” he said. “And to prove it, I’m going to breastfeed a puppy.”
