Stephen Colbert is a cut-up at cutting up tape. His latest “Late Show” triumph shows him interrogating Ryan Lochte about his drunken Rio incident.
As Vox.com noted, “During the interviews Lochte has given about the incident, which include a tell-all on ‘Today,’ interviewers have gone pretty easy on the swimmer, without really challenging what he has to say.”
But when Colbert asks about the gun-to-the-head contention, Lochte says: “I overexaggerated that part” — to which the comic host replies: “Here’s the thing: That part is really the whole part. Without the gun cocked to your forehead, it’s really just a story about some guys urinating on a gas station. How could you get that so wrong?”
“I was intoxicated,” Lochte responds.
The word is repeated again and again as Colbert weaves in questions never asked originally.
“The host even asked if the swimmer was drunk at the moment, shining a flashlight in his face and dangling a cat toy in front of him just to be sure,” Rolling Stone recounted. “Colbert was so flummoxed by Lochte’s lapses in judgment, he showed the Olympian a banana and asked if the swimmer thought it was a gun.”
The Colbert interview got more attention than the original.