The challenge normally for comedy writers and satirists is to seize on something that contains a germ of absurdity and blow it up to the point it becomes so obvious and ridiculous that audiences can't help but laugh. But the antics of Trump and his entourage have forced humorists to reverse that process. Utterings are often so far over the top that they are unprintable, unairable and incredulous. It falls to writers to tone this stuff down to get it past the censors and make it half palatable for public consumption.

They can bleep out the odd profanity or vulgarity but the 'Mooch' and his master are so proliferate with their breaches of decency that much of their rantings must be left on the cutting room floor. Tiring of the standard bleep, one late show host last night introduced a more innovative approach. He inserted the sound of a rooster crowing to convey one of Scaramucci's nastier bits of gutter talk. 

The line between humour and pathos in American politics is thinning.