Stephen Colbert’s studio audience went wild over Donald Trump’s criminal conviction on Monday night, breaking into lively chants of “Lock him up!”
On his late-night show, Colbert recapped the dramatic conclusion to the former president’s New York hush money trial and his unhinged rant at Trump Tower.
The show host then went on to address Trump’s Fox News interview over the weekend, in which Trump denied ever calling for his 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton to be jailed – despite a stash of evidence to prove otherwise.
“I didn’t say ‘lock her up,’ but the people would all say, ‘lock her up, lock her up,’” Trump falsely claimed in the interview.
After playing that clip on The Late Show, an incredulous Colbert hit back: “The people said ‘lock her up’?! That was your whole campaign! Stop it, we remember. We were there.”
Colbert likened Trump’s claim to American fast-food outlet Arby’s changing its slogan from “We have the meats” to: “We never said we have the meats. The people said we have the meats.”
He then introduced a string of vintage Trump clips, in which he was seen saying “lock her up” at his rallies, before moving on to another of the convicted felon’s dubious claims from his Fox interview: that while he would be “okay” with being sent to prison, it would be “tough for the public to take”.
“It would be tough for the public?” Colbert responded. “Actually, I happen to have a large number of the public here. Hey public, what do you all think of Trump going to jail?”
At that moment, the studio audience erupted in cheers for almost 30 seconds, with many rising from their seats and breaking into a chant: “Lock him up!”
“Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it,” Colbert said, cracking up at the reaction. “I didn’t say, ‘Lock him up.’ The people said it.”
Elsewhere in Monday’s opening monologue, Colbert joked that Trump was the first president to be convicted of a crime, but only just, because: “Once, they almost nailed Martin Van Buren for hot-wiring a horse.”
The host relished every moment of the Trump verdict, referring to the former president as the “massively convicted felon Donald Felon Trump”.
He also showed off his very own “Countdown to Sentencing Advent Calendar”, which he said will present him with a tumbler of whiskey every day until Trump’s sentencing date on July 11 from behind miniature doors bearing the face of Judge Juan Merchan.
Colbert also took particular pleasure in breaking down Trump’s bizarre attack on the judge, whom he said had “literally crucified” certain witnesses and of whom he observed: “He looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil. He looks so nice and soft.”
“Nice and soft? Is he thinking of the judge or the Pillsbury Doughboy?” the comic wondered.
