Stephen Colbert Gives Emotional ‘Late Show’ Monologue Over Trump Election Lies (VIDEO)

It’s been a tense week in the U.S. as the ongoing presidential election crawls to a close, and it seems to have taken its toll on The Late Show‘s host Stephen Colbert.

In his Thursday, November 5 show, Colbert got emotional during his monologue as he spoke about Donald Trump’s attempt to delegitimize votes. He was reacting specifically to a press conference Trump held at the White House that had been televised across various new programs before The Late Show filmed.

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“Donald Trump tried really hard to kill something tonight,” said Colbert at the beginning of his show. “Around 7 o’clock, the president came into the White House briefing room and lied.”

Colbert referred to the president’s claim that he’s winning the election “if you count the legal votes. … If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

No evidence of voter fraud has occurred, and the speech made by Trump has been flagged on Twitter as disinformation, and called out as lies by various news organizations.

(Credit: CBS)

“We all knew he would do this,” Colbert continued after showing viewers a clip from 2016, in which Trump said he’d accept the election results only if he won.

“What I didn’t know was that it would hurt so much,” Colbert stated with a thick voice. “I didn’t expect this to break my heart. For him to cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right from the briefing room in the White House — our house, not his — that is devastating. This is heartbreaking for the same reason that I didn’t want him to get COVID, certainly why I wanted him to survive, because he is the President of the United States.”

See Colbert’s full monologue below:

The Late Show, Weeknights, 11:35/10:35c, CBS