Stephen Colbert mocks Roger Stone's gag order, Sinclair pro-Trump analyst's Mr. Rushmore suggestion

Former President Barack Obama was at the Duke-North Carolina game Wednesday night when Duke star Zion Williamson's shoe split, leaving him with a knee injury, and Stephen Colbert showed Obama mouthing "His shoe broke" at the game on Thursday's Late Show. "It's so refreshing to see a president who can actually see a problem and identify it — you know Trump would have said 'Fake shoes,'" he said. "Of course, Obama's not everybody's cup of tea. Some people prefer Trump. For instance a lot of local news stations are owned by a company called the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has been accused of being pro-Trump."

On Monday, Sinclair made 50 stations broadcast a "must-run video" from chief political analysts and former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn, and one particularly sycophantic suggestion caught Colbert's attention. "Trump on Rushmore might not be that far-fetched because — and I swear this is real — there's a section of the mountain that already kind of looks like him," he said, showing the image. "But if pro-Trump reporting and his aging skinhead fanboys calm, then we've prepared an ever more pro-Trump message from our in-house broadcast team Real News Tonight."

Also on Thursday, Trump friend and longtime adviser Roger Stone was hauled into court over an Instagram post that seemed to threaten Judge Amy Berman Jackson with crosshairs. In one of his funnier excuses, Stone said he thought the crosshairs was a Celtic symbol. "Oh yes," Colbert deadpanned. "It goes back to Roman times when the Celts in Northern Europe used to threaten judges on Instagram."

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The judge told Stone she had "serious doubts" he's learned "any lesson at all" and appears "to need clear boundaries" — "Yes, possibly a series of vertical steel boundaries," Colbert suggested — and she gave Stone a full gag order. "So if you want to communicate with Roger Stone," Colbert said, "do it the old-fashioned way and contact him through his Russian hackers." Peter Weber