Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers gape at Gov. Ralph Northam's blackface debacle, refusal to moonwalk away

Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers mock Gov. Ralph Northam
(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Late Show, The Daily Show)

"Good news for the president out there — for one day, he's not our most embarrassing elected official," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. That would be Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who we just learned had a photo of a man in blackface and a man in a KKK outfit on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. "Now I know that looks bad, but it's actually very, very bad," Colbert said. On Friday night, Northam apologized but on Saturday, "when people still wanted him to step down, he had a change of heart — and of memory," saying he discovered he isn't in the photo.

Amazingly, Northam then acknowledged he did put on blackface another time when he won a dance party dressed as Michael Jackson. "You might want to learn to moonwalk away right now," Colbert advised. "Maybe moonrun."

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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.