According to recent reports out of the Huffington Post and the New York Times, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is already gunning for a Republican House majority and a personal bid at Speaker. But Stephen Colbert thinks the politician should be “careful what he wishes for,” considering he’s likely to hate the people who he’ll be working with closely every day.
“GOP members are famously the most unpleasant people from every town in America,” Colbert exclaimed. “You think people like Marjorie Taylor Greene? They sent her to Congress to get her the f— out of Georgia!”
Setting up the “Late Show” segment Thursday night, Colbert ran through the standstill of Tuesday’s midterm elections as we await results in the House and Senate that will determine which party snags the majority.
“The big political story today is that there is no political story today ’cause we still don’t know the big questions yet,” he said. “That’s all still hangin’ out there.”
But, he explained a few minutes into his monologue, if the Republican Party does take the House – as it’s looking likely it will – “the man expected to be in charge is current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.” He’s even already announced his candidacy.
“Even though the GOP doesn’t officially control the House yet, yesterday, McCarthy formally announced his run for Speaker – which is no surprise, because according to some insiders, McCarthy has been measuring the drapes for years and the interns in his office are already expected to call him ‘Mr. Speaker,’” Colbert said, citing the reports out of HuffPost.
That’s when the explicit zinger against the Republican representatives like Taylor Greene came into play.
“McCarthy should be careful what he wishes for because every recent Republican Speaker of the House has hated the job,” he said. “GOP members are famously the most unpleasant people from every town in America. You think people like Marjorie Taylor Greene? They sent her to Congress to get her the f— out of Georgia!”
Worse still, if the Republican Party does take the House, it’s already a close enough race to know that his margin of the majority would be so small that he won’t hold all that much power anyway.
“The thing is, even if he gets it, McCarthy is going to have no leverage,” Colbert said. “The House GOP shanked this election so bad that even if they win, they’ll be left with a razor thin majority, and you do not want to give these people razors — or really anything sharp of any kind.”
Watch Thursday’s full “Late Show” monologue in the video above.
