Stephen Colbert (And Thousands of Other People) Want Cardi B to Give the State of the Union Rebuttal

Vogue
Stephen Colbert's unofficial petition to get Cardi B to deliver the State of the Union address is gaining steam.

Stephen Colbert’s unofficial petition to have rapper Cardi B deliver this year’s rebuttal to the State of the Union address has received thousands of likes and retweets, much more than anyone would give—literally or metaphorically—to the idea of President Donald Trump speaking to the country as around 800,000 federal employees remain furloughed or are working without pay in the partial government shutdown.

If you remember, last week Cardi released a video on Instagram laying into Trump for holding the government hostage in order to build a wall at the United States southern border in response to a manufactured immigration crisis—the real crisis is a humanitarian one in which thousands of migrants are waiting to legally seek asylum but are stuck on the Mexican side of the border or forced to cross dangerously out of desperation. “This shit is really fucking serious, bro,” she said in her video, which prompted a now-infamous tweet in response from Senator Chuck Schumer. “Our country is in a hellhole right now—all for a fucking wall.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BstmkvDFGAm/

Since then, Cardi has been talking in detail about how the shutdown affects not just government employees but the Americans who rely on government services. “I know 800,000 federal government workers won’t be getting paid ’til the shutdown is over, and government assistance programs are shut down as well as in NO [federal] WELFARE, NO WIC, SECTION 8,” she wrote in another Instagram post.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BswjuBdF2gc/

This isn’t the first time Cardi has gotten political—she endorsed Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial candidacy in New York last year and supported “Daddy Bernie [Sanders]” for president in 2016. Cardi would very likely give a much better, much more truthful rebuttal to a State of the Union address, which Trump has now agreed to postpone after trading a series of aggressive letters with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (Pelosi essentially said that Trump would not be allowed on the House floor while the government is functioning at a fraction of its full capacity, with several very important regulatory and safety organizations unable to do their work, and Trump eventually relented.)

Cardi has tweeted in support of Colbert’s efforts, but we’ll be happy even if she merely continues to drag Tomi Lahren and talk about paying her taxes.

See the videos.