Stephen Colbert Pays Tribute to Mitch McConnell With Abrupt, Frozen Moment of Silence

February 28, 2024 @ 10:15 PM

Stephen Colbert gave Mitch McConnell a proper sendoff on Wednesday night, honoring the outgoing Republican Senate leader with a moment of silence. Well, a moment of abrupt, frozen, awkward silence of the sort McConnell has become known for.

McConnell announced earlier in the day that this fall, he’ll be stepping down as the GOP senate leader, though the Kentucky Republican will remain in the Senate.

And so it is that Colbert kicked off his “The Late Show” monologue talking about it.

“There’s big news from Washington D.C. today because, this just happened this afternoon, just a little while ago, Mitch McConnell announced he will step down as the Senate GOP leader,” Colbert said.

Colbert then joked that McConnell “is not stepping down till November because at 82, That’s how long it takes him to step out.”

“McConnell made his announcement on the Senate floor and then took a fog shamble down memory lane,” Colbert said as he played a clip from McConnell’s announcement speech. In the clip, McConnell claimed Ronald Reagan once called him “Mitch O’Donnell.”

“Close enough, I thought,” McConnell says in the clip.

“Well, that’s a very big of you, bitch O’dumbnuts,” Colbert quipped. Then came the tribute.

“I’ve had my differences with Mitch McConnell over the years. That’s no secret, but the truth is he, he’s an old man. He’s served in our Senate for almost four decades. And so I just want to put aside politics for a moment and say sincerely, uhhhhh,” Colbert said as he froze up in a parody of this.

Following this, Colbert spent some time talking about the ongoing presidential primaries. For instance, he brought up the Michigan primary where “uncommitted” came in second behind Biden with 13% of the vote. That, Colbert joked, is “like how you would tell a child you can’t have dessert until you clean your room and figure out who gets Jerusalem.”

Then he discussed the GOP’s fealty to Donald Trump and, apparently, Vladimir Putin, and mocked how the Republican investigation into Hunter Biden has completely fallen apart. You can watch the whole monologue at the top of the page now.