Tuesday was Day 3 of the House's public impeachment hearings, and the star witness was Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a
Ukraine expert on the National Security Counsel and decorated war veteran whose family fled the Soviet Union when he was a child. "Vindman used his opening statement to send a message to his father, who is still alive,"
Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's
Late Show, playing the clip. "That's moving, and true, but you know it's really going to enrage Trump, because it features his two least-favorite things: immigrants and fathers who love their sons."Vindman lauded America's virtues, which Colbert endorsed: "Yes, in America, right matters — you know, unless you're one of the congressmen on the right, then not so much these days." He played several clips highlighting the GOP's attacks on Vindman, Vindman's well-prepared pushback, and a moment of twin-talk between Vindman and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).
"It is safe to say that, politically speaking, these hearings have been very bad for
President Trump,"
Seth Meyers said at Late Night. "And Trump's reaction to the impeachment hearings has only made things worse." After Trump's previous contemporaneous attacks of witnesses raised witness-tampering concerns, "in advance of today's hearings, anchors on Trump's favorite TV channel,
Fox News, begged him not to tweet or even watch the hearings at all.""In fact, the public hearings are going so badly for Trump that
Republicans who spent weeks complaining the initial depositions were being held in private are now going back to saying this should all be handled behind closed doors," Meyers said. "And after this morning's hearings, you could see why." Trump and his allies "have tried to impugn the integrity and character of Lt. Col. Vindman," before and during Tuesday's hearings, he said, proving "once again" that "Republicans have no defense, all they can do is attack the witnesses because that's what Trump wants."
Does it matter? "We went out in the street today, we found people who said they were fans of
Donald Trump, we asked them how they felt about some stuff that Trump has done — except none of it was stuff Trump has done,"
Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "All of the events we described were about Richard Nixon." Watch his head-pounding "Watergate edition of Lie-Witness News" below.