Last week, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and members of The Late Show crew were arrested while filming sketches on the Capitol premises. According to initial reports, the group had permission to be there on Wednesday and Thursday, but they reportedly stayed too late on Thursday resulting in them being detained by the Capitol police for “unlawful entry.”
Obviously, this made for some pretty sensational headlines, and Fox News in particular immediately latched on to the opportunity to attack the liberal-leaning show. Tucker Carlson went so far to say The Late Show crew deserved over a year in “solitary confinement,” and host Stephen Colbert wasn’t having it.
After explaining the whole mix-up, which The Late Show host chalked up to the Capitol police being understandably “cautious” these days, Colbert tore into Fox News for equating the arrest with the January 6 insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Via The Hollywood Reporter:
“First of all: what? Second of all: huh? Third of all, they weren’t in the Capitol building!”
Noting that he was “shocked” he had to offer up this explanation, Colbert said, “An insurrection involves disrupting the lawful actions of Congress and howling for the blood of elected leaders, all to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. This was first-degree puppetry. This was high jinks with intent to goof. Misappropriation of an old Conan bit.”
Colbert took things even further by accusing Fox News of doing a disservice to the severity of the January 6 attack. “Drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died,” Colbert said.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)