Stephen Colbert brutally mocks Melania Trump’s naked “courage”

“Trump’s flagging campaign needs all the help it can get these days to stick to its message,” said Stephen Colbert during his Late Show monologue on Wednesday evening. “And fortunately,” he added, Melania Trump is here to do her part.

Ahead of the release of her memoir next month, the former first lady released a video on Wednesday in which she spoke for the first time about her nude photos on magazine covers. “Why do I stand so proudly behind my work as a nude model?” she asked, before posing a “more pressing question”: “Why did the media choose to scrutinize my glorification of the human form in a fashion photo shoot so closely?”

“Excuse me, what's wrong?” Colbert replied, comically shocked. “Why are you asking?! Nobody – absolutely nobody – is asking about your nude model.”

In response to Melania Trump's second question, the moderator replied: “Oh yes, the thing that the media is definitely looking at closely is the nude photo shoot of Melania on Trump's plane 24 years ago.”

Then, after joking about her famous “Be Breast” initiative at the White House, Colbert praised “Melania’s courage in bringing up her old nude photos when absolutely no one was talking about them.”

It remains unclear why Melania Trump took up this issue. Perhaps it was a reaction to The view Host Ana Navarro, who earlier this summer released a nude photo of the former first lady to fight back against “vile sexual comments” about Kamala Harris. “Do you want to go deep?” Navarro asked. “I'd be happy to go 20,000 miles under the sea.”