Stephen Colbert drops some civil theology on CNN, explains why Trump is a 'heretic against reality'

Anderson Cooper interviews Stephen Colbert

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/CNN)

published 15 August 2019

"In this age of President Trump and an intensely polarizing politics, we often need some comedic relief to lighten things up and also see things from a different perspective," Anderson Cooper said on CNN Wednesday night. "Enter Stephen Colbert." He played part of the hour-long conversation he had with Colbert earlier Wednesday, starting with Colbert's thoughts on acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chief Ken Cuccinelli mangling the poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty.

"Oh my God, I blame you for Ken Cuccinelli," Colbert told Cooper, noting that Cuccinelli was on CNN a lot. Cooper said if any official in a prior administration had messed with that bedrock statement of American beliefs, "people's heads would explode." Colbert aimed higher.

"There is our physical Constitution ... but there's also this emotional Constitution that America has," Colbert said. "There's an emotional reality that we all share that makes us all Americans, and one of them is things like 'The New Colossus,' the poem that Emma Lazarus wrote that's on the Statue of Liberty. And we're constantly being told by this administration: 'You don't see what you see, you don't hear what you hear.' Now they're saying you don't feel what you feel. ... You don't actually believe that this is a nation of immigrants."

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Colbert explained what he means when he calls President Trump a "heretic to reality." In Catholic theology, "the greatest sin is actually heresy," because "not only are you astray from the right path, you're inviting, you're encouraging other people to come with you on that path," he said. "Our president wants to live in a fantasy world where only the way he perceives the world is the way it is, only things that sort of serve his vision, and he's also trying to convince us that that is the only world that exists. It's extremely solipsistic. But he's also trying to invite us into this madness that he has, and that is heresy against reality." The thesis of The Late Show, Colbert agreed, has become "Hey, you're not crazy."

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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.

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