Seth Meyers on Wednesday reacted to recently unearthed audio of Rudy Giuliani pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate unproven conspiracies about then-candidate Joe Biden.
The July 2019 phone call between Giuliani, a U.S. diplomat, and a senior adviser to the Ukrainian president was a precursor to President Trump’s call to his counterpart, which led to his first impeachment.
“How is it that every time these guys do something shady or illegal, they get caught on tape? At this point, they’re less like politicians and more like Twitch streamers,” Meyers joked.
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The 40-minute call undermines Trump’s claim that there was “no quid pro quo.” That phrase, Meyers said, was uttered so many times by the former president that “it almost started to sound like a religious mantra you would hear on the street from some weird cult member trying to convert you.”
The late-night host also gave his sympathies to the Ukrainian official, citing the length of the call. “If I’m on the phone for more than three minutes, it ruins my entire day,” he said bluntly.
In the call, Giuliani said he had been informed by a “reliable” “international investigator” that some Ukrainian officials had been tasked by Americans to gin up dirt on Trump’s 2016 candidacy—a claim for which there is no evidence.
“I have a feeling I know who this international investigator was,” said Meyers, who then launched into an impression of election conspiracy theorist and Trump flack Mike Lindell.
After making a push for Ukrainian officials to investigate when he had been told, Giuliani happened to say, “I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“These guys can’t even bring themselves to believe their own B.S.,” Meyers said. “This is how they always do it: they float insane theories and then cover themselves by saying they’re just asking questions like they’re gossipy high school sophomores.”
Meyers then added that Trump and Giuliani knew that what they were doing was “shady” because “they all talk in that vague, mafia-esque tone where they never actually demand something explicitly…”
The former New York mayor, who once made headlines for going after the mafia, “sounds like he should be wearing a tracksuit and running his fingertip along a bar in a New Jersey restaurant saying, ‘This is a nice place, nice and flammable, if you know what I mean.’”
Giuliani is under federal investigation for allegedly violating foreign lobbying laws related to his Ukraine-related efforts.
