Stephen Colbert wonders why Elizabeth Warren was the only senator silenced this week

Stephen Colbert talks Elizabeth Warren
(Image credit: Late Show)

The big news of the day was the Senate confirming Jeff Sessions as attorney general, Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show, but all the real drama happened Tuesday night, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made Sen. Elizabeth Warren sit down and be quiet, using the Senate's arcane Rule 19. "They kept her from reading a letter from Coretta Scott King," Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow, criticizing Sessions on black voting rights, he explained. "It's all part of the GOP's February message: Happy Black History Month, now shut up about the bad stuff."

"So, to recap: These days, a black person can't get their message heard even when a white person is saying it — unless that white person is a guy," Colbert said, "because this morning a bunch of white male senators were allowed to read excerpts from King's letter on the Senate floor. Of course, the men weren't silenced; that would violate Senate Rule 18: Bros before hos."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.