Stephen Colbert blasted Donald Trump as “unbelievably sad” after the former president released a baffling statement taking credit for the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, despite his disastrous response to the pandemic. Colbert kicked off The Late Show on March 11 — the one-year anniversary of the pandemic being declared — by reciting Trump’s statement, which read like one of his old tweets:
“I hope that everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”
If you were wondering… yes, that fits under the Twitter character limit. “First of all, that’s unbelievably sad,” Colbert replied. “Second, pathetic. Third, how did we even find out about this statement? He can’t tweet this stuff! Did he just print it out and staple it to telephone poles around Palm Beach? He might as well have just released ‘Ex-prez will take credit, and teach you guitar!’”
“We banned him from Twitter,” Colbert continued. “Can we ban him from paper? Is that possible?” At the top of the episode, Colbert also played an altered version of the vaccine PSA shared by former President Barack Obama earlier in the day. The real video shows four former presidents — Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter touting the benefits of getting one of the COVID-19 vaccinations and urging Americans to get one when they’re eligible.
Colbert’s version of Obama’s PSA added a clip of Trump saying on May 2020 that the coronavirus would magically “go away” without a vaccine (which he and wife Melania Trump secretly got before leaving the White House). Maybe his invite got lost in the mail… because he destroyed the postal service,” Colbert quipped.