Stephen Colbert fights back tears and makes emotional plea to Republicans following Trump's press conference

Stephen Proctor
·3 min read
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The Late Show With Stephen Colbert opened Thursday night with Colbert making an emotional plea to republicans to speak up against President Trump. Earlier in the evening, Trump held a press conference in which he made multiple baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, and claimed to have won states in which votes are still being counted, states where Joe Biden is also closing the gap as mail-in ballots are counted.

“The president came out into the White House briefing room and lied for fifteen minutes,” Colbert said. “Just nonsensical stuff about illegal vote dumps and corrupt election officials and secret Democratic counting cabals and, I don’t know, long-form birth certificates probably. It’s all the same.”

Colbert then spoke about how this was all predictable because even in 2016, Trump said he would accept the results of the election only if he won.

“So we all knew this was coming…” Colbert said before stopping for several seconds to compose himself. “…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.”

Trump’s press conference earned him sharp rebuke from some, and Colbert called on Republicans to do the same.

“For all the predictable behavior of the last few days, and the last four years,” Colbert said, “right now something unpredictable needs to happen. Republicans have to speak up. All of them.”

Very few Republicans have criticized Trump’s claims, and Colbert called on the rest to make the choice between what he sees as fascism and the American people.

“You only survived this up ’til 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,” Colbert said. “And when it comes to democracy versus fascism, I’m sorry, there are not fine people on both sides. So you need to choose, Donald Trump or the American people.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to comment on Trump’s press conference, and Colbert warned other Republicans against doing the same.

“Americans are gonna count something else staring right now,” Colbert said. “They are gonna count who was willing to speak up against Donald Trump trying to kill democracy. And they’ll count who will stay silent in the face of this desperate attack on the bedrock institution of this truly great nation.”

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on CBS.

Watch Anderson Cooper’s brutal takedown of President Trump for unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud:

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