Kevin McCarthy became the first person in American history to be removed as Speaker of the House on Tuesday, and Stephen Colbert, for one, is thrilled. “I love the McCarthy hearings,” Colbert joked. (We assume you get that pun but scroll down if you don’t.)
During his monologue on Tuesday’s episode of “The Late Show,” Colbert also dissected a partially real, but mostly imagined Twitter feud between McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz, who introduced the motion to oust the Speaker on Tuesday and was met with a tweet from McCarthy that read simply, “Bring it on.”
(Gabrielle Union, as we now know, was not impressed).
You can watch that bit below. (The full episode airs later Tuesday night at 11:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific.)
In Colbert’s version, the conversation between McCarthy and Gaetz extended well into last night and saw the two exchanging barb after barb until one of them had to go eat dinner. At one point, the host comments, “McCarthy replied, ‘What happens now?’ to which Gaetz said, ‘Not sure bro,’ to which McCarthy replied, ‘I’m not ur bro, bro, but I think if I get a simple majority I survive.”
The clip comes from Colbert’s second show since the WGA strike came to an end.
During his first night back, Colbert told the audience that he spent some of the strike working on a new book and fishing; he also said that he was relieved to be back on TV, and course was grateful to be back with his writers.
And for those of you confused by Colbert’s pun, The McCarthy Hearings — more formally known as the Army-McCarthy hearings — were a series of Senate hearings investigating opposing accusations of misconduct by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy and the U.S. Army in 1954.
McCarthy rose to fame in 1950 at the height of the Red Scare by baselessly claiming the U.S. government had been infiltrated by Soviet spies. He became powerful and influential — and wielded both to terrorize his political enemies — until the Army accused him of abusing claims of spying in order to influence a promotion. The televised hearings exposed McCarthy for the bullying fabulist he was to the country at large, and permanently destroyed his reputation. He was stripped of power and drank himself to death in 1957 at only 48 years old.