Stephen Colbert addresses his staff getting arrested while filming at the Capitol
Robert Smigel, the voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, was one of those detained
Aux News Stephen Colbert
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog has been released from the kennel, and now his boss is clearing the air. On Monday’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the host addressed the arrests of Robert Smigel (comedian, writer, and the man behind the puppet) and other Late Show staffers during a trip to the Capitol.
“Triumph offered to go down to D.C. to interview some Congress people to highlight some January 6 hearings,” Colbert explained. “I said, ‘Sure, if you can get anyone to agree to talk to you. Because, and please don’t take this as an insult, you’re a puppet.”
He stressed that Democratic and Republican congresspeople had agreed to talk, and that Triumph and the crew were invited into those individuals’ offices. “After they finished their interviews, they were doing some last-minute puppetry and jokey make-em-ups in a hallway, when Triumph and my folks were approached and detained by the Capitol police—which actually isn’t that surprising,” Colbert continued. “The Capitol police are much more cautious than they were, say, 18 months ago, and for a very good reason. If you don’t know what that reason is, I know what news network you watch.”
“Everyone was very professional, everyone was very calm. My staffers were detained, processed, and released. A very unpleasant experience for my staff. A lot of paperwork for the Capitol Police, but a fairly simple story,” he said.
Colbert was pretty understanding of the Capitol Police’s actions, instead clowning on “a couple of the TV people” claiming that his staff had “committed insurrection” in the Capitol building. (“They weren’t in the Capitol Building!”) “Drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died,” he said.
In a previous statement on the incident, CBS maintained that the crew was “authorized” to be there. But a statement from Capitol Police (per Variety) disputed this: “The building was closed to visitors and these individuals were determined to be a part of a group that had been directed by the USCP to leave the building earlier in the day. They were charged with Unlawful Entry. This is an active criminal investigation, and may result in additional criminal charges after consultation with the U.S. Attorney.” Hopefully Triumph has a good lawyer.
66 Comments
No mention of Schiff letting them in? I guess his “authorization” are as “real” as his documents are!Also Colbert couldn’t do a green screen deal for the skit? Maybe not the best timing to go there.
Not an insurrection per se, but a poopsurrection maybe?
More of a Movement.
An arrest warrant for me to poop on!
so Kinja doesn’t do notifications (at least for likes) anymore? I have to return to an article to bask in the glory of my 4 likes?!
8 likes now. And yes, Kinja has done away with notifications for stars since like 6 to 7 months now, maybe longer. Kinja: ever getting worse!
Been borked for a while but I’m not sure if that’s a bug or a feature. I mean, think about how many more click$ these articles get when commenters have to go back to see if they’ve gotten likes?
Yeah I only get notifications for replies these days.
Cult 45: Jan 6th was no big deal, a dust-up, a walk-through that *maybe* got out of hand (thanks to Antifa)also Cult 45: there’s a puppet being mean to everyone and after Jan 6th I just don’t know if the puppet’s a violent offender or not!
Violent offenders … for me to poop on!
it’s like “that’s what she said”…there aren’t many statements that that doesn’t make better with its inclusion are there? LOL
I like “for me to poop on” better but its not as well known as the other so has more limited usage. While we’re discussing Triumph, who not share of everyone’s favorites!
I love that he’s laughing as he tries to get the line out because even he enjoys how funny it is LOL—”which button calls your parents to pick you up?” GENIUS. I have always been impressed with his ability to come up with this stuff on the fly, directly facing the person he’s about to insult.
… and poop on.
you know, if this debacle gets more people using the phrase “for me to poop on”, IMHO that’s a HUGE win for humanity. It can be liberals’ equivalent of “let’s go Brandon” but funny LOL.
No need to blame Capital riot on anarchists posing (ironically) as antifascists, eh? They already have racked up over one billion dollars in damages, nevermind the murders.I assume you were quiet as a mouse when they took over multiple city blocks, had armed guards at the entrances and freely assaulted people, all on video.Nevermind when they have tried to burn city buildings down while people are still in them… Like a spineless deviant, I take it you have never said a thing.
Not to be the Capital Police or anything, but this article uses both “Capitol police” and “Capitol Police” when it should really pick one and stick with it.
I mean just….well played, well played.
A capital offense!
poop with some capital Pees
A star well earned.
After years (decades?) of reading without commenting, I created a Kinja account just so I could star this.
Capitol Critters and Fish Police crossover we didn’t know that happened! (Only remember those were shows from the Simpsons Halloween Episode that opens up across the tombstones of cancelled animated series, including those two)
100 on the pun, although I think in this case the two usages are plausibly distinct—“Capitol police” referring to individual officers who work at the Capitol, versus “Capitol Police” referring to the organization. But I might just be splitting hairs.
Remember when the Capitol Police held the doors open as they ushered folks out of the capitol on January 6th?I guess a hand puppet and camera equipment is more threatening than zip tie binders and tactical gear.
I’m not one of those people who think the events of Jan 6 was nothing. It was an attempt to disrupt and possibly overturn election results simply because their guy said he got cheated (he didn’t).But there was no logistical way that a few hundreds of police were going to safely arrest a few thousands of people. It would have been a bloodbath. They were better off letting them go and sorting it later out via video who did what. There have been and are continuing to be arrests.
But there was no logistical way that a few hundreds of police were going to safely arrest a few thousands of people.
That’s because their backup was ordered to stand down.
It would have been a bloodbath.
It should’ve been a bloodbath. They should’ve just opened fire on the mob when the first baricades were breached.
They were better off letting them go
No.
This isn’t unusual to get stand down orders. Look at Portland when the police were getting Molotov cocktails thrown at them, or when violent anarchists we’re assaulting people with bear mace and bike locks, yet the powers that be kept them from properly dealing with the mob.
That’s because their backup was ordered to stand downYou’re correct. And the police on duty (eventually) knew that they didn’t have backup.It should’ve been a bloodbath. They should’ve just opened fire on the mob when the first baricades were breached.It might have been satisfying to see insurrectionists get what they deserve, but the police were possibly outgunned as well as outmanned. They knew people in the crowds were well armed. Hundreds would have been dead, including unarmed people, and it would have been the government that shot first. In the long run, I think that would have been way worse.All that said, it’s easy for us to be Monday morning quarterbacks on this. If you were a cop that day, would you have opened fire? Would you have ordered your subordinates to open fire? And if you were ordered to fire your handgun at angry people with AR-15 style rifles and body armor, would you do it?
Hundreds would have been dead, including unarmed people, and it would have been the government that shot first.
Those unarmed people chose to try & overthrow the government. The government should’ve shot first. If there was ever a reason for the government to shoot first, it was here.
If you were a cop that day, would you have opened fire? Would you have ordered your subordinates to open fire? And if you were ordered to fire your handgun at angry people with AR-15 style rifles and body armor, would you do it?Yes. That’s the job. Cops have repeatedly shown us that they’re overly eager to pull their guns & start shooting. Except on Jan. 6.
And Uvaldi.
Oof. The more that comes out about Uvaldi, the angrier I get. 58 minutes…WTF.
…and May 24th.
They knew people in the crowds were well armed.How many at the Capitol were arrested for illegal weapon possession? How many out of a crowd of a couple hundred thousand?And how does that compare to the J20 riots of 2016 which resulted in numerous arrests, but no charges? And if you were ordered to fire your handgun at angry people with AR-15 style rifles and body armor, would you do it?So you’re claiming that some of the pro-Trump protesters at the Capitol were armed with AR-15s or other “assault rifles”? Documentation needed. A couple people were charged for bringing firearms to DC – but not for bringing guns to the protest itself. One off-duty DEA agent was charged for bringing his service pistol onto the Capitol grounds. As you may know, a service pistol is not an AR-15. As you may further know, some law enforcement agencies require off-duty personnel to carry their weapon at all time so they can put themselvs back on duty at a moment’s notice. In a crowd that large, a crowd which the easily confused seem to believe was intent on overthrowing the government, there were less than a dozen weapons arrests?You might further want to consider that a tactical vest of a plate carrier is not necessarily body armor. It is if it’s carrying a plate or two, but otherwsie its just a vest. Furthermore, you’re very unlikely to harm anyone with an armor vest. You’d have to take it off so you can beat them with it. Body armor is, by its very nature, a defensive eapon, not an offensive one. It exists to protect the wearer (in thsis case a protester) from being harmed (in this case by police). A bunch of guys just standing around wearing body armor are no threat to anyone. If you feel threatened by other people trying to make it harder for you to kill them, maybe your time would be better spent thinking about why you want to kill them so bad. And if you were ordered to fire your handgun at angry people with AR-15 style rifles and body armor, would you do it?Ashli Babbit. No one was ordered to execute her. A Capitol police officer just did it anyway. She remains to this day the only person known to have been directly killed due to the events of Jan 6th.
When it became obvious the police were outnumbered and outgunned they should have cleared the building and evacuated and then called in the Old Guard and the Marines from the barracks in DC and had them treat all occupiers as an armed enemy force with orders to search and destroy. After which, have the press clear the area and let the military do it’s job. High casualties, yes. Any that we really care about? Not likely.
So now you’re in favor of police shooting unarmed people?
When there were BLM protests, cops didn’t have the least bit of hesitance to bust heads, toss people in vans, arrest anyone and everyone (including reporters with press passes).
had the mob been any other skin tone but ‘pale,’ there would have been a bloodbath. most assuredly.
If the insurrectionists were Black, a very large percentage of them would’ve either been shot dead right on the spot, beaten within an inch of their lives, and/or arrested immediately. Don’t believe me? Go ask a whole lot of people who took part in the BLM protests.
It would have been a bloodbath if the crowd of “tourists” who “got a little out of hand” hadn’t been light, bright and mostly white.
Remember when a mob of violent anarchists tried to burn down Ted Wheeler’s apartment building and he didn’t do a thing? Remember how leftists we’re eerily silent?Dealing with violent mobs isn’t easy or you would have said something ages ago. You must be a big Michael Reinhold and Eric Clapton fan, eh?
The Jeffrey Dahmer joke is inappropriate. That will never be funny.
lol
At least that scumbag met his end in a similarly brutal fashion to what he did to his victims.
I’ve only gave it a passing glance because there’s far more important things to pay attention to x 1000, but the gist I get is it went something like Triumph’s crew were there to film stuff for a certain period of time, they were asked to leave at said time, some stuck around after said time to finish up some different film segments, and then they got detained because they were still there after said time had passed.
they were asked to leave at said time, some stuck around after said time to finish up some different film segments, and then they got detained because they were still there after said time had passed. They were allegedly asked to leave. Seems like a weird thing to do if they were authorized to be there, and also, why would they be asked to leave instead of escorted to the door? I’ve had Costco employees be more aggressive about corralling me to the registers at closing time. And instead of merely asking them to leave an alleged second time in addition to actually escorting them out the door, they arrested them? That’s a ball grabbing power move more than anything.
I love the fact Colbert downplayed it and left out some key points such as his group had been tossed out earlier, were there wandering the hallways
unescorted after hours for hours when they weren’t supposed to be
there, and that the capitol police were called because they were causing
a disturbance, including banging on the doors of the offices of
Republicans like Kevin McCarthy , Rep. Jim
Jordan , and Rep. Lauren Boebert.
Yes, that was truly an insurrection for the ages, not like that mostly-peaceful, entirely approved January 6th protest and sing-along.
That “ mostly-peaceful, entirely approved January 6th protest and sing-along” was far more peaceful than the “fiery, but mostly peaceful” protests that had been burning down cities for the previous year. Yet those fiery protests were actively encouraged by the very people now feigning outrage over Jan 6th.
causing a disturbance, including banging on the doors of the offices of Republicans Oh, HEAVEN FORFEND!
I love how you left out the key point that a whole bunch of politicians weren’t there at the time to finalize the election of a President.
Banged on their doors? The poor little snowflakes must be so triggered!
A good guy with a gun was definitely needed.
But a statement from Capitol Police (per Variety) disputed this
Never take police statements at face value.
Or Variety, for that matter.
Or the internet.Wait– oh crap.
You could say that with every agenda driven lie that falls out of Colbert’s mouth, eh?
Pimpbot 5000 could not be reached for comment.
Stock response: “I will turn you out!”
Look, we all know this is false equivalency (comparing this to Jan 6th), but how stupid do you have to be as a crew to realize you shouldn’t be messing around with Capitol authorization after what happened?
It’s not stupidity. It’s entitlement.
Can’t it be both?
This is why I don’t like Colbert anymore, despite agreeing with him on pretty much everything. He just oozes smug entitlement.
That’s not entitlement. That’s entertainment.
Looking forward to seeing the ratio of amount of time Fox news spends dissecting this “outrage” compared to the Jan 6th hearings LOL