Stephen Colbert devoted a lengthy segment of his CBS late-night program to celebrating the weekends No Kings rallies, praising the anti-Trump demonstrations as great, huge and amazing, and delighting in the most pointed jabs aimed at the White House.
According to Mediaite, Colbert opened Mondays broadcast by marveling that the marches had taken place all over the place and were enormous, before quickly turning the moment into an extended joke about the ongoing standoff over Department of Homeland Security funding. Just look at the crowd we got here in New York, the host said, as the screen showed an image of an airport security line, then undercut the supposed enthusiasm with, Oh, thats the TSA line at JFK.
As the audience laughed, Colbert pressed the gag further, mocking the administrations attempt to address the problem by sending immigration officers to airports. Its surprising that the lines were so long considering all the help they got from ICE, he quipped, leaning into the liberal narrative that federal enforcement agencies are both omnipresent and ineffective.
He then returned to the rallies themselves, rolling footage from around the country and insisting, New Yorks actual No Kings march was huge, as were the marches. The marches in Chicago, in San Diego, Atlanta, Philly, and in Boston, Massachusetts. Look at Boston! The comedian emphasized that the demonstrations extended beyond U.S. borders into Europe, joking that the London event mustve been awkward in a nation that still has a literal monarchy.
What truly animated Colbert, however, was the protest signage explicitly mocking President Donald Trump and, by extension, the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him. He rattled off slogans scrawled on placards, including: they came for Minnesota and we said ope no ya dont. Does this ass make my country look small? No faux king way, The turd reich, and, finally, Jimmy Kimmel has higher ratings than you.
That last line, a taunt President Trump has often flipped against late-night hosts, clearly struck a chord with Colbert. I like that one. I really like that one, he told the cheering studio crowd, underscoring how late-night television has become a safe space for progressive activism rather than broad-based entertainment.
Colbert then showcased what he described as the most elaborate piece of protest art, a giant balloon caricature of Trump. Perhaps the most impressive of all was this inflatable Trump pooping directly onto the Constitution, he said to more applause, calling it Spectacular craftsmanship above all else.
Whoever made that should be proud, he added. One day their grandchild will ask them how they resisted the rise of American fascism. For conservatives who see such rhetoric as hysterical and disrespectful toward both the presidency and the Constitution, the segment served as yet another reminder that much of the entertainment establishment now treats open contempt for President Trump and his supporters as a cultural virtue rather than a partisan choice.
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