Donald Trump’s repulsive speech nearly brings Stephen Colbert to tears
For 15 seconds, a choked-up Stephen Colbert had no words.
It was Thursday night, a couple of hours after Donald Trump stunned the world by staggering into the White House briefing room and vomiting up a toxic speech that was the presidential equivalent of a delusional drunk ranting on a subway car at 2 a.m.
This speech was to Churchill as an obscene stick-figure doodle is to Picasso.
Unable to cope with the dawning reality — Joe Biden is on the road to victory — Trump cleaved to the dark conspiracies and baseless allegations conjured inside his MAGA silo. Voter fraud! Stolen election! He looked and sounded like a hallucinating mental patient in need of wrist restraints.
The sad spectacle was too much for Colbert.
Refusing to play a second from the speech, which he called “poison,” the late night host instead showed a clip from the 2016 election during which Trump revealed his Terms & Conditions in the event of a loss to Hillary Clinton: “I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — IF I WIN!”
Colbert, dressed in black and too agitated to sit, looked spooked.
His left hand rested on the back of his chair. He stared at the floor. For 15 seconds of silence, an eternity for both TV and comedy, Colbert tried to keep the tears at bay.
“What I didn’t know is that it would hurt this much,” he finally said, gathering his thoughts. “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.”
I was in the basement with my daughters when Trump’s speech came on. After about 10 seconds, I casually said they should go have some ice cream. Startled by this random offer, they bolted up the stairs just in case I changed my mind.
I don’t usually push sugar. I just didn’t want their little brains absorbing such poison.
Even by his Darth Vader oratorical standards, Trump’s speech was one for the ages, as in future historians will cite it as the worst address ever delivered by a sitting U.S. president. But by Friday, with Biden now in the lead in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona – and with some Republicans and conservative media screwing up the courage to rebuke Trump’s wretched assault on democracy — something else started to dawn. It is finally safe to mute this loser.
Trump has no intention going gently into a one-term night. Fine. Doesn’t matter. Let him have his protracted temper tantrums. Let him prove once and for all that he never had the character to lead a Baskin Robbins, let alone America. Much like his botched response to the pandemic, or his cratered economy, his smoke-and-mirrors election deceptions are now no match for reality.
The votes keep getting counted. And his re-election prospects keep fading.
Except in states he won, Trump says the system is rigged. But he offers no evidence. It’s like he’s alleging his neighbour stole his lawn mower that is still gathering dust in the shed. On Friday, when he vowed to keep “fighting,” all I could do was laugh. His five-alarm panic is so pathetic, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump has now handcuffed himself to a White House fridge as he calls Judge Judy with his nose: “CAN YOU HELP ME STAY IN POWER?”
Nobody can probably help him now. Sure, there will be recounts and lawsuits, most of which are between ridiculous and frivolous. But odds are, The Trump Show is about to get cancelled.
And in the season finale, whenever it airs, the lead star will be killed off.
That doesn’t mean the next few days or weeks will be without drama. Trump and his surrogates, family, army of angry zombies and bootlickers at Fox News will keep casting doubt on an electoral system that has actually proven to be remarkably durable. Trump will try to pass himself off as a rampaging wildebeest in the tall grass of injustice. But as Anderson Cooper put it after that repulsive speech: “That is the most powerful person in the world, and we see him, like an obese turtle on his back, flailing in the hot sun, realizing his time is over.”
I hope Colbert is feeling better today. If not, I’d encourage him to forget the flailing turtle and focus on Biden, a man who has demonstrated post-election grace and leadership as his opponent came undone. Democracy, as Biden noted, can be messy. It requires patience. Healing begins with unity. The only thing that can destroy America is America itself.
If Trump had said any of that even once in the last four years, he might not be a political flame-out in the making. But he could never lift himself out of that vat of poison.
He will leave office as he entered it: scalded by his own flaws and failures.
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