Stephen Colbert seems both gleeful and oddly mad about the GOP health-care face-plant

Stephen Colbert... scolds? the GOP for failing on health care
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show With Stephen Colbert)

Stephen Colbert kicked off Tuesday's Late Show with some fake sympathy for the Republican Party: "Folks, I know it's a comedy show but I have some sad news tonight. As of 10:48 p.m. Eastern last night, the GOP health-care bill was pronounced dead, of terminal sucking. I clap when I'm heartbroken, too," he said, responding to the audience reaction. "It was always a long shot, because the Republicans control only all three branches of government."

Then Colbert rubbed it in a bit. "It is hard to overstate the level of failure here," he said. "The GOP crushed their car, at 90 miles per hour, into a cliff, with a grin on their face." He followed that up with a more elaborate (and more confusing) analogy, taunted the GOP with the "you had one job!" treatment, then said not to worry, because there's a Plan B: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "has a plan to introduce a bill simply repealing ObamaCare with no replacement. You know, just take it away and don't fix it — like how when your car gets a flat tire, you remove the tire, then cut the brake cables and push the car into a crowd of uninsured old people. Trump likes the plan," Colbert noted, but it quickly died, too.

Colbert is pretty clearly of the opinion that the GOP was trying to screw up America's health-care system, but he seemed almost angry at their failure. "So, there it is, all their plans come to naught, all their promises are lies — and not just lies to the whole American public; specifically, they lied to their voters and the people who trusted them," he said. "So they're not going to repeal and replace, and repeal-and-delay is already dead, so what's the plan?" Well, Trump had one: make ObamaCare fail, but don't own that failure. "It explains the sign on Trump's desk," Colbert said: "'Whose buck is this? I think Obama left this here.'" Watch below. Peter Weber

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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.