The Play Ain’t the Thing: Colbert Has McKellen, Mirren Act Out Trump’s ‘Quid Pro Quo’

November 7th, 2019 4:03 PM

Because there can be no respite from lefty’s media’s Trump-impeachment narrative, late night host Stephen Colbert got British actors Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren to do a dramatic reading of Trump’s phone call with Ukranian president Zelensky. Gag.

You’d be forgiven if you thought maybe Colbert’s interview with the distinguished Shakespearean actor famous for playing Gandalf, and the academy award winning actress might have been about something more meaningful than TDS politics; The interview started about their new show “The Good Liar,” and continued into aspects of their lives in England. Still, The Late Show host quickly turned a normal Hollywood interview into a cheesy, hamfisted indictment of the president.

Colbert’s Trump-addled mind made a beeline from talking about St. Paul’s Cathedral in London to Brexit, and then on to “Trexit,” because there’s an obligatory agenda here. He claimed, “You’re trying to — you know — Brexit, exiting the European Union; We’re trying to get Trump to exit the oval office. We’re attempting a Trexit.” No kidding. You could tell McKellen switched on that acting talent as he responded to the terrible slapdash nickname with a hearty laugh.

With the TDS now in full swing, Colbert brought out what he thought was the evening’s comical anti-Trump piece de resistance. He began the propaganda by reminding the actors of the Ukraine/Trump call, providing his own inference on what actually happened.

 

 

“Donald Trump — you may have heard — released a transcript of him essentially extorting the Ukrainian president, saying, ‘We won’t give you military aid unless you launch the investigations into the Bidens’” (Yes, premise one is to hit your guests with your own highly-altered version of what happened.)

Mocking the president’s claim that there’s nothing wrong with the transcript of that call, Colbert enlisted the help of the two actors in recreating the account. He gave dialogue cards to each of them and instructed them to act out the scene: “You’re on the phone with the Ukrainian president, he’s been invaded by the Russians. You’ve got the military aid he needs but you’re not going to give it to him unless he gives you the ‘pro quo’ back.”

Clearly, Colbert needs viewers to see exactly how this went down — well exactly how Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) insinuated it went down in his much-criticized interpretation. He prompted Mirren first: “This is what you say after he says, ‘I would like the javelin missiles.’ Helen, if you would try this casually.”

Mirren gave her impression of Trump, reciting slyly, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” Colbert pounded his gavel, judging by her rendition that the president was clearly “guilty” of wrongdoing. He then prompted McKellen, who repeated the same line, but with the embellishment of pointing his hand like a gun at the fictional Zelensky. Mirren then was prompted to say it in a “happy” tone of voice, while McKellen performed again with an “innocent” attitude.

Colbert judged all four renditions as conveying guilt, because that’s what the narrative needs to be. Everyone’s in on the joke that Trump pulled a mob shakedown on the Ukranian president, well that is everyone who isn’t being honest about the transcript.