The stock market may be steadily falling and the economy headed toward a possible recession, but on Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert found a “silver lining” to all of that — one that made his audience erupt into cheers.
During his monologue, the CBS host first poked fun at Trump supporters like Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo claiming that, if the economy does enter a recession, it’ll actually be former president Joe Biden’s fault.
“Oh, Maria. Maria, Maria, that excuse is getting harder and harder to bake,” Colbert ribbed. “‘You going in the bathroom? You may want to give it a minute. Joe Biden was in there about eight weeks ago!’”
He also admitted that he really wanted to reassure viewers that everything will be OK, but couldn’t because “I’m not that good of a liar.” Still, as Colbert detailed the damage the economy is facing, he picked out a bright spot.
“There is a silver lining on the implosion of the world economy: it’s bad for Elon Musk, too,” Colbert said.
At that, the audience broke out into massive applause and cheers, somewhat startling the comedian himself with how long it went on, and prompting him to blow a kiss into the camera.
Colbert then noted that, on Monday alone, Musk lost more than $16 billion, which earned a fresh wave of cheers from the audience as well. But the host was also quick to explain that the turn on Musk hasn’t been sudden.
“This downturn didn’t start just yesterday, because Tesla stock has plummeted 50% since December, and there’s a good reason for that,” he said. “It’s a phenomenon economists call ‘Everybody F–king Hates That Guy.’”
You can watch Colbert’s full monologue in the video, above.
