Late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert lit into House Republicans after the conference, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), was dealt some embarrassing defeats this week.
Colbert, in Wednesday night’s opening segment of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” laid out a series of disappointments for the GOP conference this week, including the House’s failed votes on a resolution to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and a stand-alone Israel aid bill.
“I give Republicans in the Congress a hard time, but every so often … you got to just step back and appreciate how much harder of a time they give themselves,” Colbert said Wednesday. “Because recently, their stupid levels have reached critical dumb.”
Touching on the Mayorkas vote, Colbert said, “The vote was called by House Speaker and ‘man in the commercial who has the confidence to shake hands again after taking Cialis’ Mike Johnson.”
“The GOP, as you remember, has just a razor-thin majority in the House. So clearly, Speaker Johnson would bring this to the floor for a vote only if he knew with absolute certainty they had the votes … and they lost,” he continued. “Mike Johnson, are you definitely against porn? Because you sure like getting spanked while everyone watches.”
Colbert contended holding a vote without knowing the vote count is a “rookie mistake” that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “would never have made.”
In a stunning 216-214 vote Tuesday, the motion to impeach Mayorkas failed following a surprise appearance in the chamber of Democratic Rep. Al Green (Texas), who unexpectedly showed up on the floor after recently having surgery. He was wearing hospital scrubs and socks and voted against the bill.
Republicans counted on two expected GOP “no” votes from Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.), but a third House GOP member, Rep. Mike Gallagher (Wis.), also voted “no” after refusing to reveal his stance all day.
“Here’s what happened — Republicans thought they could lose three of their votes and still win the impeachment vote, but they did not count on the heroic return of Texas Democratic congressman and businessman werewolf Al Green,” Colbert said. “The GOP was counting on Green not showing up … but he learned about the impeachment vote while watching television. So he grabbed an Uber to the Capitol. That takes a lot of guts — some of which might still be in the back of that Uber — then he arrived on the floor of Congress, still in a hospital gown with no shoes. Turns out he was wearing one boot but he left it in Mike Johnson’s ass.”
Colbert later shifted the focus of his monologue to the Israel aid bill vote taken after the Mayorkas impeachment resolution on Tuesday.
“After that humiliating defeat, Speaker Johnson badly needed a win,” Colbert said. “So even though it was late, before the House adjourned, he called for a vote on the GOP stand-alone package for aid to Israel. And that failed too.” This prompted laughs from the audience.
“But it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how hard you laugh at Mike Johnson,” he added.
Earlier in the interview, Colbert also poked fun at the GOP conference in the Senate for this week’s collapse of the border security reform bill.
“Under orders from [former President] Donald Trump, they rejected their own border deal that they demanded four months ago in exchange for aid to Ukraine,” he said.
Most of the GOP conference in the upper chamber, save four Republicans, voted against advancing a motion to proceed on a border security package in a 50-49 vote Wednesday. The package was the product of a months-long negotiation process after Senate Republicans insisted aid for Ukraine be tied to border security reform.
The Senate is slated to vote on a Plan B solution Thursday, which would strip the foreign aid legislation of the border security deal.