Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly revealed in a bombshell interview on Tuesday that the former president said kind words about Adolf Hitler and that Trump met the “general definition of a fascist.” Despite all this, Kelly chose not to endorse either candidate in the 2024 presidential election, citing his status as a military officer.

“OK…” responded Stephen Colbert to the news in his Wednesday monologue. “This is kind of an endorsement, right?”

He likened Kelly’s choice to a parent pretending not to have a favorite child: “I would never pick a favorite child, but Kyle did lose our dog, fail out of school, and frame his parents for several of his arsons. The point is, I love both my children equally: my straight-A student Amanda, and Kyle the flaming dog loser.”

Colbert voiced his lack of surprise at the idea that Trump is a fascist, saying, “So this is less of an October Surprise and more of an early autumn No S---.”

Still, Colbert acknowledged how significant it was for a president’s own chief of staff to be saying such damning things about him: “Kelly was the Trump White House’s longest-serving chief of staff. He was a key member of Trump’s team. We haven’t seen someone turn on a leader like this since Hootie got ratted out by the Blowfish.”

Colbert also highlighted the claims from Kelly that Trump had wished he’d had “the kind of generals Hitler had.”

“That is so disturbing that he doesn’t know why that’s horrible,” Colbert said, claiming it reminded him of a famous saying: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to say, ‘I need the kind of generals Hitler had,’ and still somehow be statistically tied in all the battleground states.”