Stephen Colbert had no kind words towards President Trump’s ICE agents in his monologue Monday.
“I think we can all agree: F**k ICE!” Colbert said.
He delivered the line after discussing the cold weather in New York, but it was clear from his tone (and the mass audience applause) what Colbert was really referring to.
“On Saturday, only 17 days after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent, another American citizen was shot and killed by Customs and Border Protection agents,” Colbert continued.
That citizen was 37-year-old Minnesota resident Alex Jeffrey Pretti, who was an ICU nurse for veterans. Although the Department of Homeland Security attempted to depict Pretti as someone who “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” video footage of the shooting has challenged that narrative.
“Again, Trump administration officials immediately blamed the victim, calling him a ‘domestic terrorist,’” Colbert said, referring to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s accusations against Pretti.
Colbert remarked that “videos appear to contradict federal accounts of the shooting.”
“That analysis was from the New York Times and they weren’t alone,” Colbert said. “They were joined by NBC News, PBS News, Reuters, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.”
Colbert jokingly added, “As well as Your Own Eyes and Ears Magazine.”
Colbert wasn’t the only late-night host on Monday to criticize ICE. Seth Meyers, in his “Closer Look” segment, remarked that “the barbarism and cruelty we’ve seen on display from our own government has been heartbreaking and infuriating.”
Meyers described ICE as a “lawless federal agency” that “expects complete and total subservience while they carry out their cruel and unpopular agenda.”
“But the response from the American people has been heartening,” Meyers added, “because they are overwhelmingly on the side of Minnesotans.”
