“You did it. You survived the last four years. And your reward? A shiny new, old president.”
Stephen Colbert may have opened his live inauguration day monologue with a joke, but things quickly took on a more serious and heartfelt tone as he spoke about his experience of watching President Joe Biden being sworn into office on Wednesday.
“The inauguration was a joyful occasion,” says the Late Show host in the clip above. “Like I do at most happy things, I cried a lot.
“It was extremely emotional, and not entirely in the way that I expected, because I have to tell you, I have zero gloat in me. There is no end zone dance here. What I feel is enormous relief. Watching the inauguration today, I recognised just how worried I’ve been for my country. But we’ve all been too deep in it for the last four years to truly realise what we were deeply in. It’s like we’ve been on a ship that’s been in a storm for four years, and we just stepped on to dry land.”
Colbert spends the rest of his monologue breaking down some key moments from the ceremony itself — from Bernie memes to Biden’s speech itself — before finishing with a look forward.
“However we fix this country, it’s not the new administration’s work alone,” Colbert says. “It is up to all of us, as it always is, in whatever way we can. And President Biden, Vice President Harris: you have our prayers, our best wishes, and our every confidence.”