The latest Jan. 6 committee hearing was so full of damning bombshells about the insurrection that Stephen Colbert devoted two full monologue segments to it. And he saved the “most shocking new revelation” for last.
The Late Show host was talking about the “harrowing” footage of congressional leaders sheltering in place as rioters breached the Capitol, most notably of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking charge when President Trump refused to act.
“I’ve got to say, this footage reveals a superhuman level of composure by the speaker,” Colbert said. “And I guess it’s true what they say: Behind every successful man is Nancy Pelosi saying, ‘Chuck, please, I’ll handle this.’”
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“Can you imagine how brave it is to decide to get back to work while your office is full of people who want to kill you?” the host asked, joking that he himself would stay home if The Late Show ran out of the coffee he likes.
Colbert also, of course, highlighted the moment when Pelosi expressed concern about how long it would take to clean up the “poo poo,” both literal and figurative, that the rioters had left in the Capitol building.
“I have just one quibble with Nancy,” he said. “She said it was going to take days to clean up? Nancy, it’s been almost two years and the ‘poo poo’ still won’t accept that he lost the election.”
Finally, Colbert reacted to the committee’s unanimous vote to subpoena Trump with a bit of reverse psychology. “There it is,” he said. “Absolutely necessary and unprecedented.”
“Of course, it’s never going to happen,” he explained. “The former president doesn’t want the opportunity to defend himself on national television. I mean, even if he is the only person who could get up there and set the record straight and stick it to Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff and prove this whole thing is a witch hunt. I mean, it would be watched by too many people on the biggest stage in the world. He doesn’t want to be the center of attention, he’d get the highest ratings in history!”
“He doesn’t want to go up there and yell to the committee, ‘You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!’” Colbert continued. “‘You also can’t handle Truth Social, which is why no one is signing up, right?’”
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