Colbert on Nikki Haley’s campaign video: ‘Some classic culture-war red meat’
Stephen Colbert celebrated Valentine’s Day with his Late Show audience on Tuesday evening by discussing the news that Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s ambassador to the UN, is running against her former boss for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.
“Get excited!” wrote Haley, the former governor of Colbert’s home state of South Carolina, in a tweet on Tuesday morning. “A grateful pass,” Colbert responded.
“Of course, any political veteran will tell you there is no better time to drop the biggest political news of your life than on Valentine’s Day at 6.48am,” he noted of the announcement tweet. “A day everyone is thinking about something else, at a time when no one is awake. Only way this could make a smaller splash is if Haley whispered it into a bowl of soup.”
Haley’s announcement was accompanied by a campaign video in which she tossed out what Colbert called “some classic culture-war red meat”.
In the video, Haley notes that she grew up “different” as the child of Indian immigrants in a segregated South Carolina town, but claimed that “some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad. Some think are ideas are not just wrong, but racist.”
“She knows that America’s founding principles aren’t racist!” Colbert deadpanned. “She learned that as a little girl in her hometown that was split by a railroad track right down the middle to keep the white people on one side and the Black people on the other. You know, not racist.”
In the same video, Haley also said: “I don’t put up with bullies.”
“That’s right, she doesn’t put up with bullies like the ex-president,” Colbert joked, referencing her call to Trump to ask him if she could run for president. “Because nothing says strength like picking your bully’s brain before doing anything.”
plan to run against Trump in 2024, in which she said she believes the Republican party needs to go in a new direction. “I think you’d have more luck convincing a swarm of moths to go in a new direction,” Kimmel laughed. “The whole ‘towards the light’ thing isn’t really working.”
“I guess this means Trump has to come up with a mean nickname for her,” he noted. “Right now he’s pacing around Mar-a-Lago going ‘Sicky Nikki, Nikki Fail-y, ooh, Nikki Epic Fail-y.”
Over the weekend, he added, the New York Times reported that Trump’s nickname for another rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, is “Meatball Ron”. “Why? I have no idea,” said Kimmel, “but now that Nikki Haley is running, everyone wants to know what that means for Meatball.”
“He’s so charismatic, you know?” he deadpanned. “Trump is going to eat that meatball like a snack.”
The Daily Show
And on The Daily Show, guest host Sarah Silverman poked fun at Haley’s first campaign video, in which she promised: “I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more when you’re wearing heels.”
“Um, 1997 called, it wants that joke back,” said Silverman. “Oh wait, it just called again – it wants this joke back.”
The ad wasn’t too bad, Silverman joked. “I’m excited to buy whatever pharmaceutical product that nice lady was selling.”
She also assumed it would be a tough campaign for Haley, who was polling at 1%. “That’s pretty bad. I mean, even Mike Pence is at 2%,” she said. “Mike Pence’s noose rope is at 5%, which is VP material.”
“But you do get some advantages if you run against your former boss,” she added, imitating Haley: “My opponent’s economic plan is terrible, and when he poops in his office we all hear him go ow ow ow ow.”