Stephen Colbert roasted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for getting pelted “with rotten garbage” as he failed to become House speaker for a third-straight day on Thursday.
McCarthy has lost 11 votes for speaker this week — the most rounds of voting that the House has needed to pick a speaker since 1860.
Colbert, who dedicated his entire monologue to the chaos in the House, resorted to a riddle to mock McCarthy’s hopeful remark that he crawls before he walks and walks before he runs.
“Oh, that reminds me of the ancient riddle: ‘What walks on four legs in the mornings, two legs in the afternoon and is never going to be speaker of the House?’” Colbert quipped.
The “Late Night” host, who joked that losing is McCarthy’s “kink,” later attacked the Republican for visiting former President Donald Trump two weeks after he called on him to “accept his share of responsibility” for the Jan. 6 riot.
“He knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway for his personal political power,” Colbert said.
“He made this calculation: I can do the right thing or I could be speaker. And now he gets neither.”
Watch the rest of Colbert’s monologue, including his reveal of an AI-generated McCarthy portrait, below.