Stephen Colbert started his Tuesday monologue assuring his audience that he didn’t want to “cause panic,” but he said this while discussing a lot of panic-inducing stuff, beginning with the latest illegal and unconstitutional actions Donald Trump has taken since taking office: his mass-firings of federal workers.
“I want to welcome everybody here, out there watching and any recently fired federal employees who were looking to travel for a while,” Colbert joked. “Hey, remember when Donald Trump said he was going to be a dictator only on day one? Well, evidently, his first act as dictator was declaring that day one never ends.”
“Now I don’t want to cause panic. Frankly, I don’t have the energy, but I will say that it’s not the greatest news that Trump and the Justice Department have fired the officials who investigated Trump. Keep in mind, the January 6 investigation was the largest single investigation in the history of the federal government. And if you fire all those people, there’s going to be nobody left. We’ll have to change the name to the Department of just this guy,” Colbert continued.
“This firing is probably, and I hope you’re sitting down, illegal, because it violates civil service protections, and it’s clearly retribution,” he explained. “Unless you ask some Republicans like Congressman Dan Crenshaw.”
At this, Colbert played a clip of the Texas congressman equivocating when asked about it, saying, “I think it is open to interpretation” whether the actions Trump has taken can be considered retribution.
“Sure. Who knows if it’s revenge. It’s just like that movie V for Vambiguous,” Colbert cracked.
“Trump’s DOJ isn’t just firing lawyers who worked on the January 6 cases,” the “Late Show” host continued. “They’re also launching investigations into specific prosecutors, which they’re calling a ‘special project.’ Going after honest civil servants just doing their job is not a special project. It is a disgrace.”
“A special project is when, to protect you from the bullies on the playground, instead of going to recess, you get to help Miss Brogdon clean the erasers. That is a very special project for a very special boy,” Colbert joked.
“It’s no surprise many DOJ employees are freaking out. In fact, Biden era prosecutors are starting to hire their own lawyers for their defense, and soon, those lawyers will need their own lawyers, and so on and so on. You can see it all in the new Dick Wolf show ‘Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Order,’ just getting more law,” Colbert added.
There’s a lot more to the monologue, and you can watch the whole thing, below:
