I had to say something.
“Quick question, how was your weekend?” Stephen Colbert said at the top of his Late Show monologue Monday. “I certainly had an interesting one, because some of my staff had a memorable one.”
From there, Colbert proceeded to break down all previously unknown details about the seven Late Show staff members who were arrested on Capitol Hill last week while filming a comedy piece about the January 6 committee hearings. .
“That’s what happened,” he explained. “Last week I heard my former colleague Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Triumph offered to go to DC and interview some members of Congress to highlight the January 6 hearings. I said, ‘Yes, if you can get let someone agree to talk to you, because, please don’t take it as an insult, you’re a puppet. ‘”
Colbert confirmed that both Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreed to speak with Triumph, the long-running comedy creation of writer Robert Smigel, and he and the Late Show team spent two days recording footage at the offices across the street from the Capitol building. “They went through security clearance,” he said, and shot all day Wednesday and all day Thursday, guests in Congress offices at the people they were interviewing.
It was at the end of the second day on Thursday when “Triumph and my friends were approached and arrested by Capitol police,” he continued. “Which isn’t really surprising. The Capitol police are a lot more cautious than they were 18 months ago, for example, and for a very good reason. If you don’t know what that reason is, I know what news network you’re looking at.” .
According to the host, everyone was “doing their job”, they were “very professional” and “very calm”. The Late Show crew was “arrested, prosecuted and released – a very unpleasant experience for my staff, a lot of paperwork for the Capitol police, but a very simple story.”
“Until the next night, when a couple of TV people started claiming that my puppet team had‘ committed an insurrection ’in the US building,” he said, referring to the absurd comments made by Tucker Carlson and others.
“First of all, what?” said Colbert. “Secondly, eh? Thirdly, they weren’t in the Capitol building. Fourth, and I’m surprised to have to explain the difference, but an insurrection involves disrupting the lawful actions of Congress and shedding the blood of leaders. elected, all to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.This was first-class puppets.It was a trap with the intent to mock.Unfair appropriation of an old Conan.
Colbert said it was “predictable” that people like Carlson would make such outrageous claims. “They want to talk about something other than the January 6 hearings or the real seditionist insurrection that killed several people and injured more than 140 police officers,” he said. “But to make any equivalence between the rioters who storm our Capitol to avoid counting the ballot papers and a toy dog smoking cigarettes is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of all who died, and obscenely trivializes the service and the courage of the Capitol police was shown on that terrible day. “
“But who knows, maybe there was a big conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government with a rubber Rottweiler,” he joked. “We all know the long history of puppet illegality. The Great Muppet Caper, the Fraggle riots of the 1980s.”
“In this case, our puppet was just a puppet doing puppet stuff,” he assured viewers. “And sadly, it’s changed so much in Washington that the Capitol police have to stay on high alert all the time, because of the January 6 attack. And as audiences show every day with more Clearly, the real culprit is Putin’s puppetry. “
It has not yet been reported when the piece that Triumph and crew were filming last week will air on the Late Show, but when it does, it will surely be one for centuries.
For more information, listen to Robert Smigel on the podcast The Last Laugh.