The Late Show with Stephen Colbert takes a shot (and some Hamilton)

To help break down the testimony of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert saw its host take a shot of whiskey.

As we guessed yesterday, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had its host dedicate the bulk of his monologue from yesterday’s episode to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. However, we didn’t expect that Stephen Colbert would cover it in quite the way he did.

Prepare yourself for references and some casual political commentary. Also, Colbert sings a snippet from “The Room Where It Happens”, because Hamilton: An American Musical is still cool.

Check it out below:

Although it isn’t clear whether or not that’s actual whiskey, what matters is that it looked like it was actual whiskey. Colbert also acted like it was.

Colbert does identify Sessions, but he doesn’t identify all of the senators who speak. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), when he is not inspiring Hamilton jokes for Colbert to make, is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. His Democratic counterpart and the vice chairman is Senator Mark Warner of Virginia; you can see him starting at about the 2:45 mark in the above clip. Although he didn’t get a Hamilton reference, Colbert did get to break out The Lord of the Rings, which is a little more old-school but still entirely valid and probably something he was happy to do, because he’s famously a huge Tolkien fan.

Next up are Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), who don’t get pop culture jokes but do still get jokes, since this is a comedy show. Finally, to complete the pop culture trifecta (and who brought it up himself), Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) talked about James Bond films.

Next: Colbert rings the wedding bells

Just based on Colbert’s reaction, we’re pretty sure that the host is a Sean Connery fan.