Stephen Colbert was on day three of covering the Republican National Convention and he was particularly unimpressed with the first official speech of Trump’s vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, who formally accepted the GOP’s nomination on Wednesday.
“In his speech, Vance tried to claim America’s political center,” Colbert said, and showed a clip of Vance arguing that Republicans “have a big tent in this party.”
Colbert’s sarcastic response: “It’s a holding area where we will eventually keep the immigrants before we deport them. But tonight, we’re gonna let Rudy Giuliani sleep there.”
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“Now, there’s a lot of downsides to Vance, but here’s the biggest danger of making him vice president,” Colbert explained. “You’ll recall that on January 6th, the only thing that saved our democracy was Mike Pence actually following the Constitution. Vance would have no such qualms.”
Colbert played a clip from a February 2024 interview in which Vance said he would’ve helped Trump overturn the election results if he’d been VP in 2020: “If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors, and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there,” Vance said.
“Oh no,” Colbert replied, “They’re gonna deny the election results again, and we’re gonna have another insurrection.”
He jokingly added, “You need proof? I just checked my 2025 calendar, and there’s gonna be another January 6th.”
Colbert speculated on another big reason Trump chose Vance for his running mate: “Trump didn’t pick Vance just for his ideology… Vance briefly worked in venture capital and has hooked Trump up to the Silicon Valley money pump. Earlier this year, Vance flew to San Francisco to host Trump and two dozen tech and crypto investors at a private dinner.”
“Can you imagine being stuck at a dinner between crypto bros and Donald Trump?” Colbert joked. “‘Waiter, I’ll have the Chicken a la Cyanide.’”
