--- title: Stephen Colbert Had a Field Day With Trump's Double Negative description: On the 'Late Show,' Stephen Colbert dug into President Donald Trump's attempt to walk back his statements about Russia made in Helsinki. canonical: https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-18T16:13:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:53:55.704Z og:title: Stephen Colbert Isn't Letting Trump Get Away With His Defense og:description: The 'Late Show' host dug into Trump's attempt to walk back his Russia comments og:url: https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1142530a4047b32d/698935a7e76ad24b06632878/screen-shot-2018-07-18-at-11-38-09-am.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: colbert-trump-late-show og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stephen Colbert Isn't Letting Trump Get Away With His Defense twitter:description: The 'Late Show' host dug into Trump's attempt to walk back his Russia comments twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1142530a4047b32d/698935a7e76ad24b06632878/screen-shot-2018-07-18-at-11-38-09-am.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Stephen Colbert Is Not Letting Trump Get Away With His Double Negative Comment  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jul 18, 2018 4:13 PM UTC  YouTube  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jul 18, 2018 4:13 PM UTC [Stephen Colbert](http://time.com/5340570/stephen-colbert-trump-putin/) isn’t letting Donald Trump’s [defense](http://time.com/5341795/president-trump-russia-putin-summit-criticism/) of his comments about Russia stand. On Tuesday’s episode of the _Late Show_, Colbert dug into the president’s [clarification](http://time.com/5341137/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-russian-meddling-correction/) of his position after recent talks with Russian President [Vladimir Putin](http://time.com/5340695/putin-trump-press-conference-robert-mueller-russia/) in Helsinki — when Trump declined to criticize Russian meddling reported by the U.S. intelligence community. “It is starting to dawn [on some people](http://time.com/5340647/donald-trump-arnold-schwarzenegger-little-wet-noodle/), Trump may be a bad president,” Colbert joked before beginning to unpack the situation. After analyzing clips of Trump discussing his statements, Colbert zeroed in on his most critical “clarification:” that the president actually meant to say “wouldn’t” instead of “would” regarding Russia’s potential U.S. election hacking in 2016. “Yes, the sentence should have been that,” Colbert riffed. “It was not that. But then again, who among us hasn’t said the exact opposite of what he just said in front of cameras on multiple occasions. I’m sorry, let me clarify. That sentence should be, who among us has not not done that? If you can just add a new word in, what’s next?” Colbert continued, considering previous examples of statements Trump has made that raised eyebrows: “After Charlottesville, I meant to say, there’s ‘[bad’ people](http://time.com/4902308/white-nationalists-supremacists-donald-trump-charlottesville/) on both sides? And on that bus, I meant to say [‘respect’ her](http://time.com/5047223/donald-trump-access-hollywood-tape-billy-bush/) by the ‘pussy?;” Ultimately, Colbert agreed that Trump’s statement was, at the very least, confusing. “It’s a double negative,” he continued, “like Donald and Trump.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/"},"headline":"Stephen Colbert Is Not Letting Trump Get Away With His Double Negative Comment","datePublished":"2018-07-18T16:13:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:53:55.704Z","description":"\"It's a double negative, like Donald and Trump\"","url":"https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Donald Trump","Late Night Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1142530a4047b32d/698935a7e76ad24b06632878/screen-shot-2018-07-18-at-11-38-09-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1142530a4047b32d/698935a7e76ad24b06632878/screen-shot-2018-07-18-at-11-38-09-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"colbert-trump-late-show","caption":"","creditText":"YouTube","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5341912/colbert-trump-double-negative/","name":"Stephen Colbert Is Not Letting Trump Get Away With His Double Negative Comment"}}]}] ```