Stephen Colbert Congratulates Putin for His Win ‘by the Most Made-up Votes’ (Video)

Demonstrating the painful reality of the passage of time, Stephen Colbert kicked off Tuesday night’s “The Late Show” by joking about the reaction to Donald Trump’s congratulating Vladimir Putin on his recent reelection.

“Vladimir Putin won an election rigged to prop up a dangerous strongman who is threatening Western democracy,” Said Colbert. “That requires a strong response, so Donald Trump called him up to say ‘attaboy.'”

“You got to give Putin credit. I mean he did win by the most made-up votes. I believe the final tally was 144 million to everyone else is dead.” Ouch.

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Colbert went on to note how a bipartisan group of senators, when asked about Trump’s congratulations to Putin, basically got a “man I’m not saying nothing” look on their faces, then aped their stonefaced reactions by pretending to throw a smoke bomb. Watch the video below.

Earlier Tuesday, The Washington Post broke the news that President Trump ignored crystal clear advice from his foreign-policy advisers as to how to talk to Putin after his election victory on Sunday, under (shocker) questionable circumstances. Specifically, they threw subtlety to the wind and wrote on Trump’s briefing materials, in all caps: DO NOT CONGRATULATE.

Also Read: Trump Ignores Advisers' Subtle Message About Putin: 'DO NOT CONGRATULATE'

You can guess what happened next — Trump did the opposite. “I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on the victory, his electoral victory,” Trump said Tuesday.

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