Thursday’s edition of Late Night with Seth Meyers will run for an extra half hour to mark the release of FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report exonerating President Donald Trump of collusion with the Russian government.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec confirmed on Monday that Attorney General William Barr plans to release a redacted version of the Mueller report on Thursday.
In a statement released hours later, NBC then announced that the episode will be lengthened from one hour to 90 minutes “to give context to the redacted version of the Mueller report becoming public earlier in the day.”
The show, hosted by anti-Trump fanatic Seth Meyers, will also feature an interview with 2020 presidential hopeful and current Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg.
Thursday night was initially reserved for Saturday Night Live cast member Leslie Jones providing a breakdown of the latest episode of Game of Thrones, but Meyers argued it was essential to find time for both.
“I simply will not stand for the Mueller report bumping Leslie Jones or vice versa, so we decided to make room for both,” he said of the decision.
A summary of the report released last month effectively exonerated Trump from all wrongdoing, with Barr writing in his conclusions that “the special counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts.”
“There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction. It was a complete and total exoneration,” Trump said at the time. “It’s a shame that the country had to go through this. This was an illegal takedown that failed.”