Late-Night Hosts React to Trump Supporters Storming the Capitol

Nobody expected thousands of Trump supporters to infiltrate the Capitol Building in D.C. on Wednesday, but it was, as Stephen Colbert described it, “the most shocking, most tragic, least surprising thing I’ve ever seen.”

The Late Show host delivered an impromptu live monologue on Wednesday night and held back no punches as he criticized Trump, Republican leadership, and right-wing media such as Fox News for inciting this violence against American democracy, which led to a woman being shot and killed.

“For years now, people have been telling you cowards that if you let the president lie about our democracy over and over and then join him in that lie and say he’s right when you know for a fact that he is not, there will be a terrible price to pay,” Colbert said. “But you just never thought you’d have to pay it, too.”

Seth Meyers also delivered a live monologue on Late Night, in addition to interviewing Killer Mike and MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace about what happened at the Capitol.

“As we were all watching these stunning scenes of violence and sedition, of insurrection against our democracy, anxiously hoping for a restoration of calm and order, the President of the United States told the traitors and the mob, ‘We love you, you’re very special, I know how you feel,’” Meyers said during his monologue. “And he does — he knows how they feel because he spent four years telling them in great and odious detail how they should feel.”

Joke-heavy shows like The Tonight Show also grew somber on Wednesday night, with Jimmy Fallon promising, “Being here tonight and talking to you at home and reassuring you that we’re going to be OK and that this is not what our country is about is how I can help,” before beginning a discussion with former CBS News anchor Dan Rather.

Jimmy Kimmel managed to throw in a few quips (“Thank you for joining us for the treason finale of the Donald Trump era”) but hardly downplayed the severity of MAGA supporters marching into the Capitol wielding Confederate flags.

“The wildest part is these MAGA marchers think Donald Trump cares about them,” Kimmel said. “He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about your wife or your job or your healthcare or the air you breathe, the water you drink. He cares about himself. And only about himself. Unless you were pushing a lawnmower, he wouldn’t let you into his golf club. He’d roll his limo right over you to get a Chick-fil-A sandwich.”