CBS’s left-wing late-night host Stephen Colbert choked back tears as he excoriated “fascist” President Donald Trump and excused him of lying about the election.
“We’re taping this just a little while after Donald Trump walked into the White House briefing room and tried to poison American democracy,” Colbert said in a full-frontal attack against President Trump. “That’s why I’m not sitting down yet. I just don’t feel like it yet. That’s also why I’m dressed for a funeral. Because Donald Trump tried really hard to kill something tonight.”
“Just nonsensical stuff about illegal vote dumps and corrupt election officials and secret Democratic counting cabals and, I don’t know, long-form birth certificates, probably. It’s all the same,” Stephen Colbert continued. “And if you didn’t know that Joe Biden was getting close to 270, Donald Trump just provided all the proof you will ever need.”
Colbert then insisted that Trump’s actions are “breaking his heart.” The president’s campaign is contesting the election in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The Department of Justice is investigating alleged voter fraud in Nevada.
“We all knew he would do this,” Colbert said. “What I did not know is that it would hurt so much. I didn’t expect this to break my heart. For him to cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right, from the briefing room in the White House—our house, not his—that is devastating.”
“This is heartbreaking for the same reason that I didn’t want him to get COVID, certainly why I wanted him to survive, because he is the president of the United States,” he added. “That office means something, and that office should have some shred of decency.”
Colbert then attacked Republicans for not speaking out against Trump.
“For all the predictable behavior of the last few days and the last four years, right now something unpredictable needs to happen,” the host insisted. “Republicans have to speak up. All of them. Because for evil to succeed, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing. So say something, right now, Republicans.”
Colbert then warned Republicans to “get off the Trump train.”
“You only survived this up until now because a lot of voters didn’t want to believe everything that was obvious to so many of us: that Donald Trump is a fascist,” Colbert exploded. “And when it comes to democracy versus fascism, there are not fine people on both sides. So, you need to choose: Donald Trump or the American people?”
Colbert concluded by saying that he will not replay anything Trump is saying now as the election counts continue. “We’re not going to show you a second of what that sad, frightened fraud said tonight. Because it’s poison. And I like you,” he said.
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