Stephen Colbert opened a new episode of “The Late Show” Wednesday night with, as always, a politically charged monologue. this time out, he mocked President Donald Trump’s continued lack of a coronavirus strategy, his strange shout-out to Ghislaine Maxwell on Tuesday and the reason why Trump’s poll numbers are so abysmal as we get closer and closer to the election.
“Trump is talking about the coronavirus again because he’s desperate. Right now the only thing rising faster than the number of COVID cases are the odds that Joe Biden is going to be president. Because it turns out voters want you to care whether they live or die,” Colbert joked late in the monologue.
“Biden’s lead is largely thanks to the suburbs. Now according to exit polls in 2016, Trump won suburban voters by four points. But in the average of all polls, Biden’s ahead by more than 15 points with suburban voters. Trump needs to appeal to the suburbs. If this gets any worse, he’s gonna have to replace Mike Pence with a riding mower. Now to frighten suburbanites, Trump claims that they will face rising crime, and falling home values if a Democrat is in the White House. And he has not been subtle about it.”
“The Late Show” then fired up a clip of Trump declaring: “People have worked all their lives to get into a community, and now they’re gonna watch it go to hell.”
“Go to hell?” Colbert asked incredulously. “We’ve been boarded into our homes for the last four months afraid to touch our groceries or each other, only leaving to wait in long, socially distanced lines so someone could jab a cotton swab into our brains. This is hell. All we’re missing is the devil.”
A picture of Trump, featuring dark lighting and something in the background of the show making appear kinda like he has horns, appeared on screen, causing Colbert to yelp.
Colbert then mocked an ad that the Trump campaign has put in circulation, an ad that Colbert said was part of Trump’s “law-and-order fear campaign.” The ad shows an elderly couple in a dark house while news clips about Biden defunding the police play. We can hear Sean Hannity claim that Biden is “absolutely on board with defunding the police.”
And the kicker: Someone is trying to break into the house, but the couple can’t call the police because they were defunded.
“This is terrifying. Armed criminals are breaking into old people’s homes. But on the bright side, he is wearing a mask. So that rules out the governor of Georgia,” Colbert quipped. “Now, like a lot of scary movies, this ad is all make believe because as multiple news outlets, including Fox News, have fact checked, Joe Biden did not call for defunding the police. And as Joe Biden said in a recent op-ed: ‘I don’t support defunding the police.’ And you can tell the ad is a lie because they don’t have audio of Biden saying he’s going to defund the police. So instead they do this.”
“The Late Show” then pulled up Hannity’s portion of the ad.
“Joe Biden said he’s absolutely on board with defunding the police. Listen closely,” Hannity says, and then the ad follows that with a clip of Biden saying, “Yes. Absolutely.”
“They just lifted that line out of context from an interview where he was asked if the government should shift some funding to social service agencies,” Colbert clarified on behalf of the misleading ad. “Anyone could grab that audio to make Joe Biden agree with anything they say. Isn’t that right Joe?”
Then “The Late Show” played the clip of Biden declaring: “Yes. Absolutely.”
Colbert ended this discussion thread by noting that the fearmongering ad could have easily been made from clips from ‘Home Alone.’
You can watch all of the monologue from Wednesday night’s episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in the video embedded up at the top of this article, or right here on YouTube.