Like most other late-night hosts, Stephen Colbert was on vacation for the last two weeks of August, which made Tuesday night his first chance to weigh in on the mass devastation left by Hurricane Harvey in Houston.
The Late Show host began with a solemn plea for viewers to send their hearts, and their money, to those hit hardest by the storm. “Please remember these people, because it’s not going to go away for them for a long time,” he said. But before long, he had moved on to another “unprecedented disaster”: Donald Trump.
Colbert said President Trump “had a little trouble nailing the comforter-in-chief tone” when he traveled to Texas last week, citing his “what a crowd, what a turnout” speech as a prime example. “That crowd was really excited to see Donald Trump,” he said. “Or they heard there’d be drinking water. Either way, pretty excited.”
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The show’s audience rained down boos when Colbert quoted a report that stated Trump “didn’t meet a single storm victim, see an inch of rain, or get near a flooded street” while he was in Texas. “I know, it was surprising,” he said. “He’s been closer to a flood in a Russian hotel room.”
Trump also said at one point that while the name “Hurricane Harvey” sounded “innocent,” it was anything but. “Yes, it’s not an innocent name. We have to stop naming storms after innocent people,” Colbert agreed. “We have to name storms after guilty people so we know the’'re bad. Like ‘Hurricane Hitler’ or ‘Hurricane Joe Arpaio’—or ‘Hurricane Donald’ for that matter.”
