Stephen Colbert Bombs Away on Senate Republicans for Invoking the 'Nuclear Option'

Alexandra Rosenmann
,
 AlterNet
and
 Alexandra Rosenmann
April 07, 2017

"Late Night" host Stephen Colbert had some tough talk for both sides of the aisle following Senate Democrats' filibuster of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. 

"Whoo," he exclaimed Thursday night, after watching a Democratic protest on the Senate floor. "They did it, hell yeah! The Democrats won, for about an hour." 

Republicans would ultimately invoke the "nuclear option," changing the number of votes needed to confirm Gorsuch from 60 to 51.

"It's like the saying goes," Colbert quipped. "If at first you don't succeed, change the rules and now you win."

Not all Republicans were thrilled about the filibuster's demise. John McCain, one of the most vocal Trump critics, blasted his party for invoking the change. 

"I would like to meet that idiot, I would like to meet that numbskull that would say [let's change] after 200 years of the Senate [functioning] pretty well. They think it would be a good idea to blow it up," the Arizona senator said Tuesday. 

“You have to be pretty dumb for John McCain to call you a stupid idiot, because he thought Sarah Palin could be president,” Colbert joked.

"But McCain voted for the nuclear option," he pointed out. "In the words of an American hero, ‘You’re a stupid idiot.'”

Watch:

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