Long before Donald Trump was promising his dwindling fan base that he will defeat “demonic forces” in order to Make America Great Again, Tucker Carlson was describing the then-president himself as a “demonic force” whom he hates “passionately.”
While Stephen Colbert seemed slightly surprised that Carlson was capable of uttering such “harsh, accurate words,” he saw no evidence of that passionate loathing during the Fox News host’s painfully obsequious Wednesday night sit-down with Trump.
In his intro to their interview, Carlson did his best to pretend that the whole world didn’t just read his private texts mocking Trump when he told viewers that “for a man who is caricatured as an extremist, we think you’ll find what he has to say moderate, sensible, and wise.” What followed was anything but. Still, Colbert couldn’t help but be wowed by Carlson’s “impressive flip-flop.”
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“The ex-president rambled about a lot of subjects, like the withdrawal from Afghanistan” said Colbert. “He attacked Biden’s decision-making, and then he unveiled a brand-new military adviser.” The Late Show host then cut to a clip from what Carlson was proudly promoting as “Trump's first interview since his arraignment,” where the freshly fingerprinted ex-POTUS proceeded to tell a story about asking a five-year-old child for military advice. (The tot’s opinion seemed to line up exactly with Trump’s.)
“Totally normal conversation to have with a five-year-old,” teased Colbert. “We’ve all had those conversations. It reminds me of that famous Dr. Seuss book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Why Didn’t Johnson See the Tet Offensive Coming?”
Even more absurd was when Trump told a nodding and totally not-hating-passionately Carlson that “the biggest problem we have in the whole world, it’s not global warming: it’s nuclear warming.” While Tucker seemed concerned that Biden and the Democrats aren’t worried about this thing that Trump totally just made up, Donald explained that’s just because “they don’t understand life” or “whatever it is you have to understand.” Which really sold the “nuclear warming” concept.
“That’s a fairly all-encompassing philosophy,” Colbert marveled. “It goes all the way back to the words of René Descartes: ‘I think, therefore I understand whatever it is I have to think.’”
