Colbert on speaker votes: ‘Pure uncut Peruvian blue flake Schadenfreude’

Late-night hosts discuss Kevin McCarthy's historic failure to be elected speaker of the House and George Santos's lies

Stephen Colbert's first monologue of 2023 coincided with the first day of the new Congress, in which Republicans took over the House and Kevin McCarthy tried and failed three times to become its speaker. "It has been a day of pure uncut Peruvian blue flake Schadenfreude, watching the GOP stab each other in the throat," the Late Show host said. "And tonight, I’ll peel back the many layers of the stupidity" in a segment titled "Ass Onion: A Kev's Out Mystery."

McCarthy, a longtime Trump acolyte from California, has long wanted the job of speaker and seemed like a shoo-in in November. "But Kevin McCarthy has one major weakness: his weakness," Colbert explained. Facing backlash from even farther-right members of his own party, McCarthy lost three votes, with even less support at the end.

"Remember, there's more important things in life than winning or losing," said Colbert. "There's making fun of Kevin McCarthy for losing."

The House adjourned with no speaker – the first time in 100 years that a nominee for speaker did not win on the first vote. The "historic depants-ing" will continue on Wednesday, as McCarthy plans to continue voting to wear down his detractors until he wins the speaker's gavel. "You know, Kevin, you can just buy a gavel. I did, and I find you guilty," Colbert laughed.

Colbert also mocked the New York congressman George Santos, who during his campaign "lied about, and I’m rounding down here, everything".

Among the things Santos lied about: where he went to high school, where he went to college, working for Goldman Sachs, owning 13 properties (he lives at his sister's in Huntington), and that his grandparents survived the Holocaust. He also claimed his mother died in the September 11 attacks, then said she died a few years later, then admitted she died in late 2016. "That is a horrible thing to lie about," said Colbert. "His poor mother must be spinning in all of her graves."

McCarthy's inability to secure the vote for speaker of the House was a "monumental failure that has not happened in 100 years", said Seth Meyers on Late Night.

The host relished the backlash against McCarthy from even more pro-Trump members of his own party. "If there's one political lesson we’ve learned the past six years, it's that there is always someone who is more pro-Trump," he said. "Whatever line of decency you draw in your head, someone else is going to walk right through that motherfucker. Even Trump himself knows there are people out there more pro-Trump than him.

"McCarthy did everything he could to cozy up to Trump and the Maga circus in the House and he's still facing a revolt from the looniest members of the GOP," he added, remembering the congressman's visit to Mar-a-Lago for a photo-op with Trump days after the January 6 attack.

"Did McCarthy think one visit to Mar-a-Lago was going to magically solve everything?" he wondered. "That place is the opposite of Disney World. It's where dreams go to die.

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"If you ever find yourself at Mar-a-Lago and you’re not wearing a blue windbreaker with FBI on the back, that's how you know you made some wrong turns in life."

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also mocked Santos, who "basically catfished an entire congressional district".

Santos should have resigned after his numerous fictions were exposed, Kimmel argued, but he did not. Santos attended the first day of the new Congress, where "no one, not one of the many scoundrels wriggling around the House, wanted to sit with him".

"Imagine being so toxic Matt Gaetz doesn't even want to sit next to you," Kimmel laughed.

He also mocked the GOP's embarrassing first day of Congress, in which they took control of the House, "this time without breaking and entering".

McCarthy made "multiple offers to these lunatics" in an effort to become speaker, even agreeing to cut the Office of Congressional Ethics, "which is basically like replacing seatbelts with fettuccine", said Meyers.