Stephen Colbert Addresses ‘the Darkness’ in America After Trump Shooting: ‘Not Only Is Violence Evil, It Is Useless | Video

Stephen Colbert opened Monday’s live episode of “The Late Show” with a pre-recorded message commenting on what he called “the darkness” in America following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump over the weekend.

Describing the shocking event, in which a lone shooter killed an attendee at a Trump rally and shot Trump himself in the ear, Colbert said that watching it all unfold he was relieved that Trump survived, but felt “frankly, grief for my beautiful country.”

“How many times do we need to learn the lesson that violence has no role in our politics, that the entire objective of a democracy is to fight out our differences with as the saying goes, ballot, not a bullet?” Colbert said.

“Now, right after the attack, a young friend of mine, he texted me, saying, ‘How is this happening in America in 2024′ and I understood the shock, but I’m old enough that one of my earliest memories is sitting in a dark room with my sister watching my parents’ little black and white TV and seeing Bobby Kennedy’s coffin on that slow train from New York down to Washington,” Colbert continued.

The host noted the sad fact that “whether the result of extremist politics or mental illness, that violence is with us still,” listing several recent examples including the horrific Jan. 6 attack incited by Donald Trump, the 2017 shooting of a Republican congressional softball game in which Steve Scalise was almost killed, and the attempted kidnapping of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

“The man who fired the shot seemed to have conflicted or confusing motivations, at least by the standards of today’s stark left and right divide. Someone barely out of boyhood who reportedly donated to a democratic group in 2021 then registered as a Republican that same year, so we may never understand his motivation, nor is that necessarily our job,” Colbert went on.

“Our job as American citizens,” he argued, “is to reject violence and violent rhetoric in this time of crisis, however hard we want to fight for our ideals. And in that regard, not only is violence evil, it is useless. As I quoted when Representative Steve Scalise was shot, ‘violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.’ Violence, or even calls for violence invalidate any ideas.”

“This Week in Milwaukee and next month in Chicago, these conventions will be about the candidates who are nominated, but they’re really about the ideas that these two candidates represent and the future America they want to lead us to,” Colbert articulated. “In the wake of this attack on Saturday, many Americans on both sides of the aisle, from President Biden to Speaker Johnson are calling on all of us to change how we see each other, how we treat each other, how we talk to each other, and that may or may not happen, but those conflicting ideas will remain the same.”

“So this week, we’re going to do our best to talk about those ideas, that people who represent those ideas, and many other things with guests, and who knows, if we’re lucky, maybe some fart jokes,” Colbert concluded. Watch the full video at the top of the page.