In the first of two post-debate live shows this week, Stephen Colbert went after those long-shot candidates at the edges of the stage for inadvertently helping President Trump and Republicans make the case against the frontrunners who actually have a shot at winning the Democratic presidential nomination for 2020.
“It's hard to sum up what happened tonight,” the Late Show host began. “But most of it was a bunch of guys with no chance to win the Democratic nomination yelling Republican talking points at the people who can. It was like watching the seven dwarves offering Snow White a poison apple.”
It’s a theme he returned to again and again during his epic monologue Tuesday night. When Colbert brought up the health-care showdown between Bernie Sanders and John Delaney that came early in the debate, he definitely took the side of the 77-year-old progressive. In response to Delaney saying Sanders’ “math is wrong,” Colbert shot back, “I'm not sure the guy polling below 1 percent should be talking about math right now.”
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Later in the night, Delaney tried a similar tack against Elizabeth Warren, but she shot him down with the applause line of the night: "I don’t understand why anybody goes to the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about all the things we can’t do and shouldn’t fight for.”
“Boom!” Colbert said, imitating the boxing coach from Rocky. “Stay down, Delaney! Stay down, Delaney! You're bleeding out, you’re blind in one eye.”
And finally, in response to John Hickenlooper beginning his closing statement with, “What a night, I loved it!” Colbert said, “That makes one of us.”
