“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert had a visceral reaction Monday night to Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino’s claim that his agents were the real victims in the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis over the weekend.
“Bulls—t! Masked secret police shooting innocent people with impunity in the streets are not victims,” Colbert responded, to loud cheers from his “Late Show” studio audience. “The only way they could ever even be considered close to victims is that they are, at best, weak-minded individuals full of anger who have been led to the darkness by Donald Trump and are now participating in an evil system that will stick to them like hot black tar for the rest of their lives.”
Colbert then offered some advice to the ICE and Border Patrol agents operating in Minnesota right now, telling them, “I’d cook at home from now on, fellas, because no meal will ever go un-spit upon.” The comedian additionally took issue with the Trump administration and, particularly, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s attempts to paint Pretti as a dangerous antagonist in the moments leading up to his killing.
“They want you to believe that something didn’t happen when we all saw it happen with our own eyes,” Colbert said. “It’s like claiming that Alan Cumming doesn’t serve looks on ‘The Traitors’ when there’s plenty of evidence that he feeds us every damn week, mama!”
Colbert then called out President Trump for trying to blame Democrats for putting “illegal alien criminals over tax-paying, law-abiding citizens” and creating the dangerous circumstances that have resulted in the January shootings of both Pretti and fellow Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol agents.
“Your anti-immigrant thugs are the one killing tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, and Americans won’t stand for it because we have read our country’s user agreement, the Declaration of Independence,” Colbert responded, before quoting the document in question. “‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.’”
“The Trump administration wants fear and Minnesotans are responding with community,” he further observed. “Seeing Minnesotans react to brutality with grace reminds us all that standing up for our neighbors is our duty as Americans.”
