Stephen Colbert and a Keebler cookie talk Jeff Sessions’ resignation

With Jeff Sessions no longer the Attorney General, Stephen Colbert had to address it in perhaps the most comedic yet appropriate way possible.

What a waste of a good cookie, Stephen Colbert. Granted, considering his joke with said cookie, it might have been weird to eat it. But still, that was a perfectly good Elfwich, and you crumbled it to pieces on national television!

Then again, it’s not like a certain leader of the country didn’t basically reduce his Attorney General to Thanos-style dust beforehand, prompting the cookie usage on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Yes, Jeff Sessions is no longer Attorney General. Here’s Colbert’s entire discussion of the topic from last night’s opening monologue.

Before we get into the research and some additional reading, who had “residual Attorney General” on their Colbert monologue bingo card? No one? Great, we didn’t either. As much as the jokes about Sessions’ resemblance to a Keebler elf have been on Twitter for what feels like forever, it’s one thing to refer to the joke. It’s another to go to the level of representing him via a cookie.

As for the articles that Colbert referred to, the New York Times writeup of the Sessions firing is perhaps paramount, although its headline reads “forces Sessions to resign.” This wording is based on the resignation letter, which Colbert also brings up, as the letter itself says the resignation was at the behest of the president. In a tweet, one member of the House of Representatives, Karen Bass (D-CA), noted reports saying the letter is undated. That’s true.

Currently, Matthew Whitaker is serving as the Acting Attorney General. Here’s Vox‘s latest analysis of Whitaker, picking up on the themes Colbert notes (criticism of Robert Mueller and so on) and expanding on them, with additional links for readers to peruse at their leisure. This morning, CBS News reported that Chris Christie is in the running to become the new Attorney General, listing a few other names as well.

Finally, here’s some of the other fallout. Colbert refers to a Politico article about the president’s response. Meanwhile, this morning, the outlet also reported that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) has already spoken out against the resignation, and he referred to legislation intended to keep the investigation going. Although it might seem odd (and Manchin did praise Sessions, which is not necessarily what you’d expect of most Democratic senators), Manchin did just win his re-election. In The Washington Post, Greg Sargent ran an opinion piece this morning about what the newly Democrat-controlled House can also do come January. Additionally, as for Sessions, Politico got one more report in that says he could contend for the Senate seat currently held by Doug Jones (D-AL) in 2020.

As today continues, more reports about what’s going on inside the current administration seem likely, as well as other legislators speaking out about what they’d like to do about the ongoing issues at the Department of Justice and the investigation both.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights on CBS.