Stephen Colbert isn’t fooled by Representative Matt Gaetz’s sympathy over former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s ouster: During “The Late Show’s” opening monologue, the comedian mocked Gaetz’s “reflective mood” despite getting “exactly what he asked for.”
On Wednesday, Gaetz addressed McCarthy’s removal in a press conference, saying, “The stages of grief are in progress right now with some of my colleagues.” He then went on to detail what the stages of grief are.
“It is so so rare to get lectured about grief by the murderer,” Colbert quipped Wednesday night. “‘There, there, let it out. It’s healthy to cry. By the way, do you have a tarp I can roll your corpse up in?’”
Colbert also called the entire news story “a slide down chaos mountain into insanity river to the bottom of dumba-s canyon.”
Gaetz is understood to be the ringleader in McCarthy’s removal. ABC has called the feud between Gaetz and McCarthy “one of Congress’ worst-kept secrets.” Gaetz was the one who pushed back on McCarthy becoming Speaker, leading to the unprecedented 15 rounds of voting before McCarthy was allowed to take over the role. He only was able to take on the job after agreeing to a rule that stated a single House member could introduce a vote to remove the speaker, a clause that Gaetz utilized this week.
Colbert also took aim at that clause as well as McCarthy’s claims that his removal was due to the Democrats. “You handed a straight razor to the craziest, most selfish nihilists in the entire MAGA mob and said, ‘Just hold this to my neck and if I say or do one thing you don’t like, just slice away,’ and you’re blaming the Democrats?” Colbert said.
This week marked late night’s return after five months of being away following the conclusion of the WGA’s strike against the AMPTP.
