Colbert on infrastructure: ‘Quicker load times for QAnon conspiracy theories’
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert observed a historic occasion on Monday evening, hours after lawmakers answered “one of the thorniest questions facing our country: should we have roads?”
The answer was yes, as Joe Biden signed into law the $1.2tn infrastructure bill to fund projects from public transportation, roads and bridges to ports, railways, power grids and broadband internet.
“That means thanks to Joe Biden, more Americans will have access to high-speed internet,” the Late Show host explained, “which means quicker load times for all their QA-non conspiracy theories.”
The intense negotiations over the measure were remarkable, he added, because “funding roads and bridges didn’t use to be such a big deal”. The original 1956 measure which created the interstate highway system, for example, enjoyed strong bipartisan support.
“But now, not so much,” he continued. “Our politics are so partisan, so broken, that the GOP House members who voted in favor of infrastructure were targeted by their own party of their House committee assignments and even got death threats.
“Are we just death threat-ing everything these days?” he added. “Pretty soon we’re going to need a new greeting card section: Death to a Special Nephew on His Birthday.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers celebrated the arraignment of Trump ally Steve Bannon, who turned himself in to authorities on Monday after a grand jury indicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress.
Bannon, who refused to assist the House investigation into the 6 January attack on the Capitol, arrived at the courthouse on Monday and “of course couldn’t help but shout out some incomprehensible anti-government babble into a camera”, Meyers detailed.
In a nonsensical tirade, the former Republican strategist referred to himself as “Captain Bannon” and called for allies to “take down the Biden regime”.
“I’m sorry, you call yourself ‘Captain Bannon’ now?” Meyers mocked. “It’s like an ironic nickname they give the guy who rinses out the chum buckets down at the marina.
“Also it really undercuts your attempt at defiance and bravado when there’s a guy behind you holding up a sign that says ‘Coup Plotter’,” Meyers observed of a protester at Bannon’s arrest. “Gotta be a bummer for a guy like Bannon who thinks he’s an evil mastermind to get upstaged by a sign that clearly took five minutes to make.”
Jimmy Kimmel
In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel recapped the highlights from “the 900th book” about Donald Trump’s presidency. In Betrayal, the former president told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl that he “wouldn’t dispute” a report that he told Mike Pence to “you can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy” on the morning of the Capitol riot.
“I wonder if he tried to grab Mike Pence by the patriot,” Kimmel joked. “Mike Pence now claims he has no problems at all with his former boss, so I guess Trump was right.”
The book also revealed a movement within Republican leadership to ban Trump from Biden’s inauguration; according to Karl, Trump got wind of the plan and tweeted his planned absence before it could be announced he was disinvited.
In a statement released on Monday, Trump disputed the story and said “the decision was mine and mine alone” and called Mitch McConnell “the old broken-down Crow”.
“He’s still got it,” said Kimmel.
Trevor Noah
And on the Daily Show, Trevor Noah reacted to Trump’s non-denial of calling Mike Pence a pussy. “‘I wouldn’t dispute it?’” he marveled. “Wow, Trump is gangster – ‘Why would I dispute it, the guy’s a total pussy, why would I dispute it.’
“You know what I love about Trump? Even if he didn’t say that, he’s the type of guy who would pretend he said it just because it sounded cool,” he added.
“By the way, can we also acknowledge that ‘don’t be a pussy’ is the thing that people only go to in life when they don’t have any other arguments? It’s the last option when you have nothing real to convince someone with,” he continued.
“But sometimes it’s good to be a pussy. Often times history is made by pussies,” he concluded. “I mean, Gandhi? Total pussy. Britain was like ‘Are you gonna fight us? Or are you a pussy?’ And Gandhi said, ‘I am a pussy – you must be the pussy you want to see in the world.’”