Donald Trump’s outrageous, sad, and dangerous statements made in the White House briefing room on Thursday night have left us in some kind of obese turtle shellshock. Standing at the podium, the president repeated baseless, false claims of election fraud as Joe Biden’s standing in key battleground states continued to improve as the vote count continued.
Processing these feelings on The Late Show was host Stephen Colbert, who donned a sombre all-black ensemble to deliver an impassioned, emotional monologue on Thursday night’s show, blasting Trump for his desperate attacks on democracy.
“The president came out into the White House briefing room and lied for 15 minutes,” said Colbert. “Just nonsensical stuff about illegal vote dumps and corrupt election officials and secret Democratic counting cabals, and I don’t know, longform birth certificates, probably. It’s all the same. And if you did not know that Joe Biden was getting close to 270, Donald Trump just provided all the proof you will ever need.”
Though Colbert can usually find a frivolous, biting way through Trump’s chaotic bullshit, the late show host and longtime commentator on the president’s antics found he needed a moment to deliver this emotional monologue.
“So we all knew he would do this,” he said, taking a pause to gather himself. “What I didn’t know is that it would hurt so much. I didn’t expect this to break my heart. For him to cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right from the briefing room in the White House — our house, not his — that is devastating.”
“He is the President of the United States,” he added. “That office means something, and that office should have some shred of decency.”
Colbert took the opportunity to issue a call to action, directly pleading with Republicans (“all of them”) to speak up immediately against Trump, “because for evil to succeed all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.” And like, right now, not tomorrow, not next week.
“You only survived this up till now because a lot of voters didn’t want to believe everything that was obvious to so many people: that Donald Trump is a fascist. And when it comes to democracy versus fascism, I’m sorry, there are not fine people on both sides. So you need to choose: Donald Trump or the American people. This is the time to get off the Trump train, because he told you where the train is going and it’s not a passenger train and he’ll load you on it someday too.”