Stephen Colbert Eviscerates John Kelly’s ‘Willful Ignorance’ on the Civil War

Stephen Colbert is not happy with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s revisionist history about the Confederacy.

“Nope, sorry, a lot of people thought slavery was wrong back then,” the Late Show host, who hails from South Carolina, told Kelly on Tuesday. “For example, I’m going to go out on a limb here: black people.”

The night before, Kelly appeared on Fox News and not only praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee as an “honorable” man but also blamed the Civil War on a “lack of ability to compromise.”

“What do you mean there was a ‘lack of compromise?’’ Colbert asked. “The Civil War happened because of compromise. The Missouri Compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise. You’re a general and you don’t know why the Civil War happened? What do you think caused World War II? A zoning issue?”

“Maybe I’m being unfair,” Colbert added before whispering, “I’m not.” Maybe, he said, a “lack of compromise really was at the heart of the Civil War.” With that, the violin music started playing and Colbert read aloud from a phony letter by a Confederate soldier to his wife that suggested just having slavery Monday, Wednesday and Friday or “every other weekend.”

“Or maybe, Kelly knows better and is just being willfully ignorant,” the host said, “because as the chief of staff, he’s now forced to defend the positions of an idiot.”