Tuesday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson continued his assault against CBS’s “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert after several of his staffers were arrested earlier this week for breaching the U.S. Capitol.
For the second night in a row, Carlson did a deep dive into Colbert’s use of his platform to promote left-wing causes and politicians.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: So last Thursday, last week on Thursday, talk show host Stephen Colbert dispatched a group of seven of his employees to Washington, D.C. Their job? Break into the U.S. Capitol complex and harass lawmakers inside.
So, the group dutifully arrived in the afternoon and were met almost immediately by uniformed Capitol Hill police officers who threw them out. But apparently on orders from Colbert, they returned.
At about 4:00 PM on Thursday, the group reentered the building. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened next, but it seems clear that Colbert’s employees were led inside by an ally within the building, that would be a freshman Member of Congress from Massachusetts called Jake Auchincloss.
Once on Federal property, Colbert’s employees did what they came to do, which was disrupt the business of Congress, and apparently they were not subtle about doing it. They pounded on doors and yelled. Whatever they did, it got people’s attention.
It takes an awful lot for a police force controlled by Nancy Pelosi to arrest a group of left-wing entertainment figures, but that’s exactly what happened next.
Capitol Hill police arrested seven Colbert employees and brought them to jail. All seven of them were charged with unlawful entry. Now, that’s the identical charge that hundreds of January 6 defendants have been prosecuted for. But unlike the January 6 defendants, Colbert’s employees were not sent to the DC jail for a year and a half in solitary confinement. No, they were released after only a night behind bars, and then they fled back to New York.
Why is that? What exactly is the difference in the crime?
As a legal question, we still don’t know the answer. For some reason, Capitol Hill Police have not released the surveillance tapes that would show exactly what Colbert’s employees did that so triggered the police force controlled by Nancy Pelosi that they were arrested, but whatever they did, otherwise, sympathetic Members of Congress are running away from it as quickly as they can.
“We do not condone any inappropriate activity within the Capitol,” Jake Auchincloss’ office told us today. It was a factual matter. That is not true.
In fact, Jake Auchincloss has a recent history of condoning criminal behavior in the Capitol. Just this March, surveillance cameras in the complex caught Jake Auchincloss’ Chief of Staff, that would be a former Adam Schiff staffer called Tim Hysom, vandalizing the front door of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal office.
Hyssop did this not once but several times violently, like a man obsessed. Capitol Hill police quickly filed an arrest warrant against him because Tim Hysom clearly posed a threat to a member of Congress. But Jake Auchincloss did not fire him. Instead, Jake Auchincloss defended Hysom’s vandalism as noble and justified. “Our office is not going to apologize,” read a long and self-righteous statement from Jake Auchincloss.
In other words, “We don’t like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s politics. Therefore, we can do whatever we want to her and we will.” For the most part, the media ignored the story. So, Jake Auchincloss and Adam Schiff felt emboldened to go further. They invited Colbert’s employees to the Capitol to harass Marjorie Taylor Greene some more, which is what they were trying to do when they were arrested by Capitol Hill Police.
Now, whatever you think of her politics, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a sitting Member of Congress. Preventing her or any other Member of Congress from carrying out official duties as a public representative is, by definition, an attack on democracy.
So, how is what Stephen Colbert did different from what the protesters on January 6 have been convicted of doing? That’s a very good question and it’s a question that Colbert himself spent the weekend thinking about.
His conclusion? Well, unlike Trump voters, Stephen Colbert is a very good person. Therefore, any comparison to Trump voters is not simply ridiculous. It is a moral crime. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, “THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT”: Now it’s predictable why these TV talkers are talking like this on the TV. They want to talk about something other than the January 6 hearings on the actual seditious insurrection that led to the deaths of multiple people and the injury of over 140 police officers, but drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died and it obscenely trivializes the service and the courage the Capitol Police showed on that terrible day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, it was a toy dog. “It’s shameful.” In other words, “When you criticize me, you’re really criticizing the brave Capitol Police officers who arrested the people who work for me, the ones who committed the crimes I asked them to commit and I, for one, will not stand for that.” That’s what he just said.
Now, what you have there is not so much an explanation. In fact, it doesn’t explain anything. Instead, it’s a master’s class on whiny, rich, liberal self-righteousness. It’s a distillation of a worldview that is so concise and so perfect, it is certain to be studied by cultural historians of the future, seeking to understand how our civilization collapsed.
“Not only am I not sorry, you’re the criminal for bringing it up. Stop hitting me,” he screams as he punches you in the face. That is passive- aggression taken to the level of art. In any way, Colbert says, “Shut up. I’m a comedian with a toy dog, you can’t criticize me.”
So, the question really is, is Stephen Colbert a comedian? Well, if you’re one of the relatively few people still watching Stephen Colbert’s show on CBS, you’ll have to admit it is hard to tell.
Most nights, Stephen Colbert sounds like the notably unfunny Karine Jean- Pierre. He sounds like a Biden flack delivering whatever talking points the White House tells him to repeat and if you doubt that, here’s what it looks like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLBERT: Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden did it. He’s our next President.
The biggest story continues to be the one you were thinking about when you weren’t sleeping last night and it’s the one happening all over America, the protests in wake of the murder of George Floyd.
And please don’t buy the false narrative that these are lawless mobs. The vast majority of these protests have been peaceful.
There’s a simple, if extremely difficult solution, reduce the number of guns. We’ve done it before and it worked.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a humanitarian crisis, but also it is a triumph of humanity.
Take that, Putin.
OK, so I might have the most privilege of any White person you’ve ever met. How do I identify that in my own life? Because if I have White privilege, I want to be able to identify it. Give me some hints as to my White privilege.
Vaccine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “Get the vax, peasants, surrender your guns, support Ukraine and remember, it’s called Kyiv now.” This isn’t comedy. It’s a very sad midlife crisis, but more than that, it’s information war being waged against television viewers on behalf of the Democratic Party.
At least when the White House Press Secretary does it, she admits what she’s doing. Colbert hides behind his former job as a comedian. “It was all a joke. When people I don’t like break into the Capitol, it’s insurrection. When we do it, it’s sketch comedy,” right?
It’s getting harder to maintain that lie and here’s how, you know, comedians have a sense of humor. It is, in fact, a job requirement, but Stephen Colbert does not. Stephen Colbert has lost his sense of humor along with the critical distance and perspective that make humor possible.
At this point, he’s just a partisan scold, and you know that for certain, because even as he watched the QAnon Shaman parade around the Capitol on January 6, Stephen Colbert did not laugh.
Now, an actual comedian whatever is politics would have found that spectacle hilarious because — let’s be honest — it was.
(BEGIN “THE NEW YORKER” JAN. 6 VIDEO CLIP)
QANON SHAMAN: Hey [bleep] man. Glad to see you guys. You guys are [bleep] patriots. Look at this guy. He’s gotten — covered in blood. God bless him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You good, sir? Do you need medical attention?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m good, thank you. I got shot in the face. I got shot in the face with some kind of plastic bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any chance I can get you guys to leave the Senate Wing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will, I’ve been making sure they ain’t disrespecting the place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, just want to let you guys know this is, like, the sacred-est place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “Hey,” say the guy in the bear skin and the horn hat. That’s not hilarious? Yes, it is hilarious. “No, he’s a seditious insurrectionist,” said Colbert, “He needs to go to jail. He’s a terrorist,” and when he was sent to jail, Colbert applauded.
Now, that’s how Maoist countries act. That’s not how comedians act. So, Stephen Colbert may be a late night host still for some reason, but he has zero sense of humor. He ought to step aside and let some young person who still gets the joke to have the job, but he won’t.
Here was Colbert on November 6, 2020. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLBERT: And if you did not know that Joe Biden was getting close to 270, Donald Trump just provided all the proof you will ever need. True story.
I’m wearing black tonight because I was getting dressed this afternoon and I thought he might try some shenanigans and it might be fitting to tell jokes while wearing something somber, if he goes down that dark path.
So, we all knew he would do this. What I didn’t know is that it would hurt so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Those were real tears, the only real thing about that show. We’re not trying to belabor the point, but the guy is not a comedian. You watch a comedian, you think, “That guy’s hilarious, I’d love to meet him.”
Imagine eating a meal with Stephen Colbert. Chances are you somehow offend him over the course of a typical dinner by saying something he finds offensive. What are the chances of that? One hundred percent. Stephen Colbert is a Karen. He’s a brittle, middle-aged woman who is always lecturing you about something. In fact, he’s Elizabeth Warren. They even look alike. Have you seen them in the same room recently? No.
Sad, he was talented at one point, and so was Robert Smigel. That’s one of the Colbert employees who was also arrested last week. Smigel been doing his dog puppet routine for 30 years. That’s the one that Colbert is now hiding behind.” It was just a dog puppet.”
The dog puppet was kind of funny during the Clinton administration. It is pure hackery now. Smigel keeps going because he’s got a political message. “I’m going to beat you over the head with my political message.” No one laughs at Robert Smigel anymore. It’s pathetic.
Who’s funnier: Robert Smigel, or the guy who took pictures of himself at Nancy Pelosi’s desk on January 6? Be honest, it’s not even close. The guy at Pelosi’s desk is hilarious compared to the guy with the talking dog and none of them is half as funny. Again, sorry it’s true as Donald Trump, and how do you know that? Show us the late night host who said anything half as amusing as Trump’s Taco Bowl tweet.
Ever? Any of them? No, never. These people are so afraid. They’re so terrified, holding onto their stupid jobs late into middle age, that how do they respond to Cinco de Mayo? Fawning over the indigenous cuisine of the Latinx community.
Nobody likes that and that’s why in the end, Stephen Colbert has not a single Hispanic viewer. His audience is entirely self-hating White liberals like him.
So nobody watches him anymore. And that’s fine, that CBS’s problem. But don’t tell us you’re a comedian, and therefore exempt from the normal rules of behavior and the normal Federal laws about trespassing, because you’re not.
You did what they did, and you should be punished in exactly the same way.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor