CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert carried out an extremely hostile interview with 2020 Democrat Presidential candidate Rep Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday night which contained almost no jokes and instead focused on him trying to associate her with David Duke and the "war crimes" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
This was unwatchable. Colbert just went down the list of scripted Gabbard smears (Assad, David Duke) then sermonized about how US military intervention is a force for good in this world. All without telling a single joke. Late night "comedy" shows are propaganda for livestock. https://t.co/CqNF58sn9V
After briefly asking his guest who she is and why she’s running for president, Colbert jumped right into it by immediately bringing up Syria and Assad, the primary line of attack employed against Gabbard by establishment propagandists in American mainstream media.
Colbert: Do you think the Iraq war was worth it?
Gabbard: No.
Colbert: Do you think that our involvement in Syria has been worth it?
Gabbard: No.
Colbert: Do you think that ISIS could have been defeated without our involvement and without our support of the local troops there?
Gabbard: There are two things we need to address in Syria. One is a regime change war that was first launched by the United States in 2011, covertly, led by the CIA. That is a regime change war that has continued over the years, that has increased the suffering of the Syrian people, and strengthened groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS, because the CIA was using American taxpayer dollars to provide arms and training and equipment to these terrorist groups to get them to overthrow the government. So that is a regime change war that we should not have been engaging.
Colbert: So, but if it is someone like Bashar al-Assad, who gasses his own people, or who engages in war crimes against his own people, should the United States not be involved?
Gabbard: The United States should not be intervening to overthrow these dictators and these regimes that we don’t like, like Assad, like Saddam Hussein, like Gaddafi, and like Kim Jong Un. There are bad people in the world, but history has shown us that every time the United States goes in and topples these dictators we don’t like, trying to end up like the world’s police, we end up increasing the suffering of the people in these countries. We end up increasing the loss of life, but American lives and the lives of people in these countries. We end up undermining our own security, what to speak of the trillions of dollars of taxpayer money that’s spent on these wars that we need to be using right here at home.
[...] Stephen Colbert spent the rest of the interview informing his TV audience that Tulsi Gabbard is dangerous and poisonous.
Colbert: You got some heat for meeting with Bashar al-Assad. Do you not consider him a war criminal? Why did you meet with that man?
Gabbard: In the pursuit of peace and security. If we are not willing to meet with adversaries, potential adversaries, in the pursuit of peace and security, the only alternative is more war. That’s why I took that meeting with Assad. In pursuit of peace and security.
Colbert: Do you believe he is a war criminal? Do you believe he gassed his own people or committed atrocities against his own people?
Gabbard: Yes. Reports have shown that that’s a fact.
Colbert: So you believe the intelligence agencies on that. Because I head that you did not necessarily believe those reports.
[...] “I don’t know whether America should be the policemen of the world,” Colbert said after Gabard defended her position.
“It is my opinion that we should not be,” Gabbard replied, causing Colbert to launch into a stuffy, embarrassing sermon on the virtues of interventionism and US hegemony that would make Bill Kristol blush.
“If we are not, though, nature abhors a vacuum, and if we are not involved in international conflicts, or trying to quell international conflicts, certainly the Russians and the Chinese will fill that vacuum. And we will step away from the world stage in a significant way that might destabilize the world, because the United States, however flawed, is a force for good in the world in my opinion. Would you agree with that?”
Again, this is a comedy show.
Gabbard explained that in order to be a force for good in the world the United States has to actually do good, which means not raining fire upon every nation it dislikes all the time. Colbert responded by reading off his blue index card to repeat yet another tired anti-Gabbard smear.
“You’ve gotten some fans in the Trump supporter world: David Duke, Steve Bannon, and, uh, Matt, uh, Gaetz, is that his name? Matt Gaetz? What do you make of how much they like you?”
Notice how Colbert doesn't even know who Matt Gaetz is? He's literally just reading off a cue card his masters handed to him.
Colbert's interview with Wall Street puppet Cory Booker just last week was the exact opposite of his interview with Gabbard.
Colbert opened with multiple jokes and yukked it up throughout. He let Booker spew generic platitudes about nonsense for the entire interview (which was two segments rather than one) while he sat silently and looked as though he was enraptured.
In the same vein as his interview with Gabbard, Colbert could have easily asked Booker: "Why does Wall Street like you so much?"
Instead, Colbert let Booker run the entire interview. Despite giving Booker nearly twice the time, Colbert chose not to ask him even one single hard question!
CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert carried out an extremely hostile interview with 2020 Democrat Presidential candidate Rep Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday night which contained almost no jokes and instead focused on him trying to associate her with David Duke and the "war crimes" of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.