“If you’ll excuse me, I’m a little shaky tonight because my heart has been hurting all day… due to a condition my doctor calls ‘hope,’” announced Stephen Colbert on The Late Show Wednesday.
Yes, Republican Roy Moore, an accused sexual predator of teen girls, lost to Democrat Doug Jones, a man who prosecuted members of the KKK involved in the tragic 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that claimed the lives of four little black girls.
The win made Jones the first Democrat to win an Alabama Senate seat in 25 years, and served as a major rebuke to President Donald Trump and his alt-right-aligned ally Steve Bannon, both of whom publicly backed Moore.
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And, in a bit of poetic justice, black voters were the major reason for Jones’ victory, with Jones getting just 30 percent of the white vote but a whopping 96 percent of the black vote.
“If I’m not mistaken, I think that means African-Americans get an A+ while white voters will be held back to repeat the civil-rights movement,” cracked Colbert.
Colbert also noted in his monologue that the Roy Moore defeat was “a loss to all Republicans,” particularly “former Trump adviser and laboratory monkey receiving the placebo in a syphilis trial, Steve Bannon.”
Yes, Bannon backed Moore in the Republican primary against Luther Strange, a more establishment Republican who was supported by Trump. The two—along with Jones—were competing to fill the Senate seat vacated by current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“But, the real loser here is Donald Trump, because he was all-in on Roy Moore,” said Colbert, citing a source who told CNN’s Jim Acosta, “It’s devastating for the president… this is an earthquake… Virginia but on steroids.”
Following the Moore loss, Trump tweeted the following, claiming that “the deck was stacked against [Moore]”:
Colbert indeed noted how “Trump was a staunch backer of Luther Strange in the primary, but as soon as Strange lost, Trump deleted all his tweets supporting him.”
“And he’s going to do the same thing for Roy Moore,” Colbert added, “because backing a racist, homophobic teen-squeezer is one thing, but backing a loser? That’s off-brand.”
In the days and weeks leading up to the Alabama special election, Trump threw the full weight of his support behind Moore, praising the candidate at a rally in Pensacola, Florida—just a stone’s throw from Alabama—and recording a series of robocalls urging Alabamians to vote Moore.
“And you can’t delete a robocall,” said Colbert.
