Stephen Colbert Pre-Empts Monologue After "Heartbreaking" Trump Press Briefing

Stephen Colbert explained why he was dressed for a funeral at the top of his Thursday show. "Donald Trump tried really hard to kill something tonight." 

Colbert has followed the Trump presidency with a fine-toothed comb for four years. He predicted how Trump would respond to losing, which was to "pretend that he won and accuse everybody else of cheating. The guy does not have another gear! Get a new act!" 

After Trump's Thursday press conference, Colbert pre-empted his monologue to express his outrage. 

"We all knew he would do this," he said, before getting surprisingly emotional. "What I didn't know is that it would hurt so much. I didn't expect this to break my heart. For him to cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right, from the briefing room in the White House — our house, not his — that is devastating. This is heartbreaking for the same reason that I didn't want him to get COVID, certainly why I wanted him to survive, because he is the President of the United States. That office means something, and that office should have some shred of decency."

"We always knew he would leave a stain there, and not just from his butt bronzer, because everything he did — everything — is now in some way 'presidential behavior,' including this, unless every single person rejects what he just did," he added, calling on Republicans (all of them) to say something about it. 

"You've only survived this up until now because a lot of voters didn't want to believe everything that was obvious to so many of us — that Donald Trump is a fascist," he said, addressing GOP leadership. "When it comes to democracy vs. fascism, I'm sorry, there are not fine people on both sides. So you need to choose. Donald Trump or the American people. This is the time to get off the Trump train, because he just told you where the train is going, and it is not a passenger train, and he'll load you on it someday, too."

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.