Stephen Colbert found himself in the rare spot of having a tough act to follow as he delivered a live monologue on Thursday night, shortly after the first January 6 hearing aired in primetime. But, given how much there was to unpack, he wasn’t lacking in material.
Colbert kicked off his monologue by comparing the hearings to Stranger Things, in that “we met the monster years ago, and we’re pretty sure the Russians are involved. And, like the stars of Stranger Things, I have noticeably aged.” Colbert left no one untouched in his hilarious recap of the proceedings: He came down on Republicans who had brushed the whole thing off as a “nothingburger,” and marveled at the fact that Fox News opted to run commercial-free for two hours. “Do you know what that means?” The Late Show host asked. “Fox News is willing to lose money to keep their viewers from flipping over and accidentally learning information… But I’m really not surprised; that’s the first rule of any cult: never leave the compound.”
But Colbert was most shocked by the moment in the hearings when Liz Cheney “hit the president where it hurts him: right in the Ivanka. Because they rolled in footage of the First Daughter’s reaction in her testimony to [former attorney general Bill] Barr calling her father’s charges of election fraud BS.”
Ivanka, looking like she was beaming in from another planet, shocked everyone when she testified that “I respect Attorney General Barr, umm, so I accepted what he was saying.” While Papa Trump is apparently on the warpath over her comments, even “truthing” about it on TRUTH Social, Colbert assumes his feelings about his favorite child’s seeming betrayal are more complicated than that.
“That must have been a bittersweet moment for the president,” Colbert said. “She finally screwed him.”
You can watch the full monologue above.