With other shows on holiday, the Late Show host celebrates new favorable polls for Kamala Harris and looks into the shortcomings of JD Vance.
Stephen Colbert
“I’m a little worried,” said Stephen Colbert on Wednesday evening, “because since Sunday afternoon, I haven’t been that worried. And that is deeply troubling. I personally blame our next president, Kamala Harris.”
“Everybody has been buzzing about her ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket,” the Late Show host continued, “and now we have some hard data to back up all that enthusiasm.”
Colbert cautiously prefaced that polls are an inaccurate science. “Polls don’t vote, people do. This far out, it’s just a snapshot of the present opinion, and you cannot place any of your trust in them, OK?” But it didn’t stop him from celebrating the fact that a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Harris led Trump by two points. “It’s over!” he joked with a celebratory dance.
It’s not over at all, but still, Colbert was jazzed, especially given Harris’s first rally as the Democratic presidential candidate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “It was refreshing to see a presidential rally without a single wrestler from the 1980s,” he said, referring to Hulk Hogan’s appearance at the Republican national convention.
Harris led supporters in a new chant: “Not Going Back!” “That is a powerful message,” said Colbert, “and it applies to so much. Women’s rights? Not going back. Gay rights? Not going back. That corndog stand that gave us E coli? Might go back – it’s just so crispy.”
By Wednesday morning, the Harris campaign raised $126m. “Do you have any idea what this means?” Colbert exclaimed. “That means that Kamala Harris had a bigger opening weekend than Twisters. Sorry, Glen Powell.”
Harris’s campaign has also gotten a boost from “America’s most precious resource: celebrities”, as Hollywood is reportedly “energized” by Harris’s candidacy. “Yes, I can tell you she is the biggest thing to hit Hollywood since Ozempic, and lying that you’re not on Ozempic,” Colbert joked.
Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who according to polls is the least liked vice-presidential nominee in decades, hosted a rally in his home town of Middletown, Ohio, in which he sounded “like a groom who invited only co-workers to his bachelor party”.
The senator is from Ohio, “which Trump’s already got”, Colbert noted. “He doesn’t soften Trump’s far-right stuff at all. He’s kinda Handmaid’s Tale curious, which will not appeal to suburban women, and he’s terrible on the stump. So a lot of people are asking, why the hell did Trump pick him in the first place?”
According to Trump, it’s that “he likes me. Maybe more than anybody, he likes me.”
“Really? Vance likes Trump more than anybody else? Is that true?” Colbert scoffed, before a video of Melania simply saying “yes”.
And House GOP leaders have reportedly urged members to stop making race comments about Harris. “Not great when you have to remind your employees not to do something that everyone knows is wrong,” said Colbert. “You never want to see a sign at a restaurant that says: ‘Employees must wash hands, and less pooping in the sink.’”
