Stephen Colbert told Wednesday’s “The Late Show” audience that he recently tried to give his staff some hope about the coming second Trump administration. “maybe,” he said, “it’ll be different this time.”
Then he confirmed this is correct. “It’s already way worse,” Colbert joked.
The bleak assessment of things to come was inspired by the news Wednesday of the many, many startling choices the former president — who despite attempting to overthrow the government in 2021, was never held accountable for this by the Biden administration, for reasons unknown — is making for his next administration.
Most notably, Trump tapped Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be his attorney General.
“Tt has been eight days since the election, and this is our fifth show since then, and for the last week, I’ve been walking around the building reminding everybody, Hey, this isn’t great, not the outcome I hope for. But this isn’t our first Trump rodeo. Almost eight years ago, we all saw him saunter down those Capitol steps, put his hand on a Bible, lie to the Chief Justice about defending the Constitution, and then give an extremely accurate speech about the coming American carnage,” Colbert said during his monologue.
“And I’ve been saying quite sincerely, ‘hey, let’s not get out over our skis here. Let’s take this one day at a time, maybe, maybe, betting against all logic and all previous experience, it’ll be different this time,” Colbert continued. “I was right, because it’s already way worse.”
“This afternoon, Donald Trump announced on truth social that he is nominating Matt Gaetz to be the Attorney General of the United States of America,” an incredulous Colbert exclaimed. “During the campaign, I thought if Trump won, he would do the worst things I could imagine. Turns out, I don’t have much of an imagination.”
“There is not enough Botox in the world to hide how shocked I am. There’s also not enough Botox in the world because Matt Gaetz used all of it,” Colbert added. This was of course a reference to Gaetz’s bizarre appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Colbert also talked at length about some of the other jarring news about the upcoming second Trump term, and you can see all of it in the video below: