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Stephen Colbert began his Monday show with an earnest condemnation of “violence and violent rhetoric” in the wake of the attempted assassination of President Trump, before launching into a humorous bit about one especially “chilling” statement Marjorie Taylor Greene made at the Republican National Convention on Monday night.
The Georgia congresswoman was one of many speakers at the RNC in Milwaukee on Monday and leaned into anti-LBGTQ+ rhetoric during her speech, insisting at one point that “there are only two genders”.
On his show, Colbert also highlighted another “absolutely chilling” comment she made on stage, rolling out a clip of her saying Donald Trump is “the leader America deserves”.
“Why?” Colbert cried. “Did we run over a witch’s cat? Did someone make a wish on a cursed chicken foot?”
Taylor Greene’s appearance at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee came a day after she took heat for multiple wild claims on her X account following the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in rural Pennsylvania on Saturday night.
“The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, murdering the innocent unborn, violence, and bloody, meaningless, endless wars,” she wrote on X on Sunday.
“They want to lock up their political opponents and terrorize innocent Americans who would tell the truth about it. The Democrat party is flat-out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump.”
Despite Taylor Greene’s continued baseless accusations against the Democratic party, many politicians have been encouraged to tone down their political rhetoric.
However, a person involved in planning the Republican National Convention told ABC that the convention won’t just go ahead after the shooting – it’ll continue "with a vengeance".
“No! No! We’re toning down the rhetoric! Remember? I don’t want to continue anything with a vengeance. I want to continue everything with a bong hit, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and reruns of Gilmore Girls,” Colbert said.
In the past few days, Trump, whose ear was injured after a bullet grazed past him while he stood on stage at his campaign rally on Saturday, has been repeatedly calling for American unity and to stand united together in the aftermath of the shooting that killed one rallygoer.
While lawmakers try to push for this unity, Colbert did shine a light on a particular moment at the RNC when the Senate minority leader appeared to be drowned out by a resounding chorus of boos while reading out the Kentucky delegate roll call.
“Unity,” Colbert reacted to the booing. “You know, people ask what gives me hope. I’ll tell you. Whatever our differences, all Americans despise Mitch McConnell.”
Colbert also touched on the announcement of Trump’s 2024 running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance—a man who was once a critic of Trump but has now garnered a place as the potential Vice President alongside him.
The show host noted that once upon a time, Vance had described Trump as “cultural heroin” and another time when he compared the former president to one of history’s most evil dictators.
Vance once allegedly said in a message to a friend in 2016: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump might be a cynical a**hole like [Richard] Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he might be America’s Hitler.”
Colbert mocked Trump’s subsequent pick of Vance despite these past comments: "Just looking at your resume here Mr Smith, it says you called me "Satan incarnate,’ Voldermort’s ugly, unstable brother, and a slightly more perverted Jared from Subway,” he joked.
“Oh, but you are proficient in Excel! Welcome aboard!” Colbert added.
While Colbert did perform jokes about Republican politicians and the convention on Monday, he also delivered an earnest message in response to the shooting at the rally, condemning the violence that ensued.
“My immediate reaction when I saw this on Saturday were horror at what was unfolding, relief that Donald Trump had lived and frankly grief for my beautiful country,” the Late Show host said, adding he was also horrified that attendees were also shot, one of which had died as a result.
“How many times do we need to learn the lesson that violence has no role in our politics, that the entire objective of a democracy is to fight out our differences with, as the saying goes, a ballot, not a bullet,” he said, adding that the motivations of the gunman are still unclear.
“Our job as American citizens is to reject violence and violent rhetoric in this time of crisis, however hard we want to fight for our ideas,” he said.
