It takes a lot more than it used to for Stephen Colbert to get worked up about Donald Trump. But he got there during his Late Show monologue Tuesday night over the new report that the former president plotted to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.
“Let’s be clear,” he said, “it is difficult after years of building a thick, protective callus over my heart and my brain, just to protect myself from the hot, black tar of his narcissistic, evil impulses, for me to take this information in for the gargantuan and grotesque violation of everything that this country holds dear. But I think it’s worth taking a moment right now to let this sink in, just to marinate in his madness.”
“To be clear, the former president, still the leader of one of the two major parties, who has all of the Republicans balls in a little velvet pouch that he wears around his neck like an amulet, wanted U.S. troops to go into your local polling place, grab the machines, throw them in a truck, then God knows what? Waterboard them ‘til they said he won?” Colbert continued, furiously. “You should be alarmed, even if you voted for him. Because military coups do not lead to healthy societies. No one ever says, ‘If only we could emulate the economic miracle that is Myanmar.’”
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The host went on to say that Trump may have worked “harder” on this plot than anything else during his four years as president, even enlisting Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it was legally possible and reviewing a “horrifying” proposal that would have allowed the military to take control of voting machines in swing states.
As The New York Times reported, “Even Mr. Giuliani, who had spent weeks peddling some of the most outrageous claims about election fraud, felt that the idea of bringing in the military was beyond the pale.”
“Do you know how crazy you have to be to hear that you’ve gone too far for Rudy Giuliani?!” Colbert exclaimed. “That’s like hearing you’ve had too much to drink from Rudy Giuliani. Or you’ve got to get those bottom teeth fixed, from Rudy Giuliani. Or don’t try to fish your penis out of your pants in front of a Borat film crew, from Rudy Giuliani!”
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