Welcome. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the late show. Im your host, Stephen Colbert. cheers and applause ladies and gentlemen, before we get started, i just want to take a moment to talk about the attack today in alexandria. Once again, were all shocked in mind and soul by a mass shooting, this time targeting, apparently, republican congressmen. And i pray to god that everyone pulls through. Violence of any kind is never justified and is the last refuge of the incompetent. Thankfully, none of the members or their staff or police were killed today. And i will say this even in the horror of this day, there was reason to take heart in bipartisan responses like this we will use this occasion as one that brings us together, and not separates us further. We are united in our shock. We are united in our anguish. And an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Stephen so i just want to say thank you to the congressional leadership and to the president for responding to this act of terror in a way that gives us hope that whatever our differences, we will always be the United States of america. Thank you for that. cheers and applause now, lets try some comedy. Whats going on today . Oh, its Donald Trumps birthday. 71 candles on that cake. Although, trump later said it it was over a million candles. Most candles ever. And 200 democrats got together to give the president something he might like. But instead, theyre suing trump over foreign payments to his businesses. cheers and applause at least at least it is his birthday. It is his birthday. At least they got together to give thim this card congratulations, birthday boy youve been served. Its nice. Its sweet. If youre going to do it, its a nice way to do it. Also, 24 hours later, were all still digesting the Senate Intelligence committees allyoustonewall buffet featuring attorney general and doll carved from an apple, Jeff Sessions. laughter applause sessions they sneak up on you sometimes. Sessions had a lot to answer for, from his role in the comey firing to his undisclosed meetings with the russian ambassador. And republicans did not hesitate to hold his little curly shoes to the fire. Attorney general its good to see you here. Its good to see mary. I know there are probably other places youd both rather be today. And its good to see you here together and know that your family continues to be proud and supportive of what you do. Thank you. Ive been blessed, indeed. I agree with that. I agree with that. Stephen mr. Sessions, my question is as follows are you now, or have you ever been the worlds greatest grandpa . laughter do you recognize this mug, sir . At long last, do you not recognize this mug . Thank you. That shelf is getting very crowded over there. Jon it is. You have to dust it. Stephen but there were a few tougher questions for sessions to answer; namely, about conversations he had with the president , but sessions was perfectly willing to not answer them. Im not able to discuss with you or confirm or deny the nature of our private conversations that i may have had with the president. It would be inappropriate for me to answer and reveal private conversations with the president. Im not able to share with this committee private communication. Im not able to comment on conversations with high officials within the white house. Stephen wow, hes really good at providing absolutely no information. I think we found the replacement for sean spicer. cheers and applause congratulations, sir. So why isnt sessions answering . Well, the only possible reaso would be that the president had invoked something called executive privilege, which usually prevents his aides from sharing details of their conversations with the president. But trump hasnt claimed executive privilege here and sessions cant claim executive privilege. So, whats happening . You said you dont have the power to assert the power of executive privilege. So what is the legal basis for your refusal to answer these questions . I am protecting the right of the president to exert it uh assert it if he chooses. Stephen thats not a thing laughter you cant just refuse to answer a question in case the president later decides he didnt want you to answer it. You cant just thats like saying, i invoke my constitutional right to the 28th amendment, which, of course, is not written yet, but it might be written one day. And it might say that i dont have to answer your question. So i can go outside and play in the sprinklers. Wee cheers and applause weee applause even though no one has ever heard of this nonprivilege privilege before, sessions claims its a department of justice policy. So i can understand, is the basis of that unwillingness to answer based on executive privilege or its longstanding policy of the department of justice not to comment on conversations that the attorney general has had with the president of the United States. Can you share those policies with us . Are they written down at the department of justice . I believe they are. Stephen yes, i believe theyre absolutely written down on paper. Totally unrelated question can i borrow a pen and some paper . laughter just for a minute. Could i clear the room, please . Weee applause funny thing, though, those answers didnt satisfy california senator and mom from a cereal ad, Kamala Harris. Senator harris wanted to know the concrete details of sessions secret policy about secrets, and that did not sit well with other members of the committee. Is you referred to a long standing d. O. J. Policy. Can you tell us what policy it is youre talking about . The policy is based on the principle that the president sir, im not asking about the principle. Im asking im unable to answer the questions. You would rely on that policy. Did you not ask your staff to show you the policy that would be the basis for you refusing to answer the majority of questions that have been asked to you chairman, the witness should be allowed to answer the question. Senators will allow the chair to control the hearing. Senator harris, let him answer. Stephen yeah, come on, senator harris, if you just give the guy a minute to talk, im sure he can come up with a new reason why he cant answer. Ive got my antisenator force field up. And, also, the floor is lava laughter i yield the remainder of my time. Now, remember, this hearing was about russian interference in our elections. And Kamala Harris had a lot of questions. Well, let me change that. She had a lot of the first half of questions. Did you have any communication with any russian businessmen or any russian nationals . I dont believe i had any conversation with russian businessmen or russian nationals. Are you aware of although a lot of people were at the convention, its conceivable that somebody sir, sir i have just a few ques well, you let me qualify. If i dont qualify it, youll accuse me of lying, so i need to be correct as best i can. I do want you to be honest. Im not able to be rushed this fast. It makes me nervous. Stephen yes. Jeff sessions doesnt respond to being rushed. In fact, its the only kind of rushin he wont engage with. cheers and applause weee but according to former trump advisor and goatee host organism, jason miller, theres a perfectly reasonable explanation for why harris kept getting interrupted. He came out with a surprising amount of vinegar and, uh, fire in his belly today with some of his answers. He knocked away some of the hysteria from Kamala Harris. How was senator harris hysterical . I think she asked a lot of questions. She was very dogged, there was no question. But i wouldnt say she was anymore dogged than ron wyden, would you say that . Uh, listen my my opinion on that is i think she was hysterical. Stephen really . If anyone was hysterical, maybe it was the old question saying that her questions were scaring him have you know shame, senator harris . How many verbs is this sentence going to have . A dangling participle coming at me like a viper in the night. I do declare, this aggressive line of questioning. cheers and applause i have the vapors. Beauregard, bring me a fainting couch and a mint julep weve got a great show for you tonight. Trevor noah is here. But when we return, the return of russia. Stick around weee you know new pantene. R tangles the minute you wash it . 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Do you believe the russians interfered with the 2016 elections . It appears so. The Intelligence Community seems to be united in that, but i have to tell you, senator king, i know nothing but what ive read in the paper. Stephen so, the top criminal investigator in the United States gets his intel from newspapers . I do not think we should investigate russia. My horoscope says its a bad time for capricorns to start new projects. All right. My moon is in aries, right now. But senator king kept going. There was a memorandum from the Intelligence Community on october 9 that detailed what the russians were doing after the election, before the inauguration. You never sought any information about this rather dramatic attack on our country . No. Never . Stephen yeah, just never thought to ask about it. Its all explained in his childrens book. Not curious jeff. laughter i think, i think our leaders maybe should take a little interest here. Vladimir putin has. In fact, we just learned that russias attempts to hack the election were far more widespread than we thought, including hacking into voter databases and software systems, in 39 states. Thats right, 39. That the mean in 2016, the russians had higher voter turnout that we did. laughter in illinois alone, the hackers got access to a database including names, dates of birth, genders, drivers licenses, and partial Social Security numbers on 15 million people. Which explains why so Many Americans suddenly got pay accounts on sturgeongirlsexparty. Ru. laughter nobody, nobody its a quality site. Nobody knows nobody knows exactly what russia plan to do with the information, but the Obama Administration believed they might delete voter registration, slow down vote tallying, or suppress votes in lowincome neighborhoods with short poll hours and voter i. D. Requirements. Wait, im sorry. That last one was north carolina. My apologies to russia. The point is the threats from the russians is real and its not going away and we need to fight it. Its in everyones interest. Because while russians appear to have favored trump in the last election, next time they could throw their support behind the democratic nominee putin in a pantsuit. Well be right back with our friend trevor noah. Stick around. cheers and applause get, get, shooo hey out out get, get, get arrrrrgh did you find everything okay, sir. . panting whaaaaat. . Have a good day, sir [music volume rises] run in to get up to 50 percent off the entire store. [whistles] lets go hi, fashion. Old navy. You totanobodys hurt, new car. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. 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The most common side effects were nausea, constipation and vomiting. Trintellix had no Significant Impact on weight in clinical trials. Ask your healthcare professional about trintellix. band playing band playing cheers and applause stephen ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show. Folks, i greatly admire the work of our first guest tonight. He hosts the daily show every night on comedy central. Please welcome trevor noah cheers and applause thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Stephen good to see you. Good to see you. I just want to say since the last time i had you on here, last september or something. Thats right. Stephen you have written and released a book called born a crime. I did, indeed. Stephen all right, im angry that you have time to do that. laughter or the energy, really. Because i just go home at night and they put me in amniotic fluid so im ready for the show the next night. You have an hour show, and i have a half hour so. You also have a family. Im alone. laughter stephen thats true. Thats true. Yeah. But you travel all over the world. Youve got to be exhausted on a certain level. You know what, i find i get my energy from doing the things i love. Its actually something i learned from you. I dont know if you remember saying this. When creating the show, Stephen Colbert said like hes not here he said, the joy of the show is not oftentimes in performing it. The joy is derived from creating it, and what youre watching is a manifestation of that joy. Stephen you show the audience what we all to do together. If you do what you love and i know its hard in this world if you do the thing you love you dont get tired. You get tired because of the challenge. But you dont get mentally and emotionally challenged. Man, that was a nice day. Imagine doing something you love until you got tired. That sounded wrong, but you know what im saying. laughter . Stephen it sounded very right to me. Of course, there are days like today, when shows like mine and shows like yours, we talk about what has happened in the day, and today there was another there was another horrific shooting in america, this time targeting, apparently, g. O. P. Members of congress. Right. Stephen do you have any thoughts on what happened today . I think what you said, similar to what i had as an initial thought especially because we watch the news so much and that was it was great to see people from both sides seeing this and uniting under the banner of human and american before anything else. Thats one of the things that were seeing less and less of in society today, it feels like. Its almost something i was talking to senator al franken, and i was saying to him, like a lot of people didnt know he was friends with Jeff Sessions before the whole, you know, testimony. And i think thats something thats lacking in american politics is politicians showing from both sides of the aisle that they are friends. Its almost become like wrestling, where the fans dont realize that those people get along. applause those people fight every single day, but, like paulrian said today, like nancy pelosi said, we fight tooth and nail, but we dont forget that we are people. We are friends, we are families, we are colleagues. And i feel like they could do a better job of saying that to americans, hey, we fight. You can fight. But dont forget at your core, you are americans. Dont ever forget that. applause stephen well, thats absolutely thats absolutely right. But that also reminds me that how long have you been in the United States . How long have you been living here full time now . This is my second time living here. I left just to practice leaving before donald trump said so. laughter so i lived on the west coast for two years. And then i left the United States and went to work in the world, and then ive been living here i guess its close to three years. Stephen five years all together. Are you an american citizen yet . No, no, no, not allowed to be. Stephen not allowed to be. Not yet. Stephen are we playing hard to get. No its time. I get it. With an immigrant theyre like we want to see where this is going and figure out are you really into us . Lets go sl