Over the past 13 months since it was first revealed that Donald Trump had stolen highly classified documents from the White House, we’ve been deluged with a stream of further details about the breach—each one seemingly more damning than the next.
While learning that the former president believes he had the power to declassify documents with his mind got some laughs from Stephen Colbert when the news broke more than a year ago, the Late Show host seems downright spooked by the recent revelation that Trump shared intel about U.S. nuclear submarines with Aussie billionaire Anthony Pratt.
“Thanks to the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, we’re now learning how much [Trump] loved to wave our secrets for the guests at Mar-a-Lago,” Colbert said on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT
As for why Trump divulged some top-secret deets to Pratt, Colbert assumed that’s because “he heard that the guy came from Down Under and he thought, ‘Well that’s where the submarines are.’”
While it has been reported that Trump spat out the precise number of nuclear warheads our submarines can carry as well as just how close one of these vessels can get to a Russian submarine without being spotted, that’s not even what scares Colbert. What frightens him is Pratt himself: “Oh my lord!” was Colbert’s initial response at seeing a photo of Trump and Pratt standing side-by-side. “It looks like they made [Pratt’s] hair out of Trump’s face and Trump’s hair out of his face.”
Pratt also happens to be a Mar-a-Lago member and, according to Pratt, by way of Colbert:
“One night down at the club, the former president started blabbing our national secrets after Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States.”
Which put a different spin on the events in question as far as Colbert is concerned. “Trump was just sealing the deal,” he said. “Following the old sales mantra: ABC—Always Be Compromising National Security.”
Even more frustrating for the host was that Trump didn’t ask for anything in return for dishing some hot goss: “You can’t just give away our classified secrets without trading for some of Australia’s classified secrets. Like how they make the bloomin’ onion. Every petal is perfectly fried! Why doesn’t it clump?”
