Stephen Colbert wasted no time roasting the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates on The Late Show Wednesday night following the first Democratic Debate of the election cycle. Colbert had plenty of jokes about the behavior and answers of the candidates, especially the random outbursts of Spanish from former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.
O’Rourke answered his first question of the night in Spanish in a moment that led to plenty of “Beto en Espanol” memes on Twitter.
“I’m not entirely sure why [O’Rourke] felt he had to do that,” Colbert said. “He’s either trying to lock up the Hispanic vote or running for ‘Embarrassing dad at a Mexican restaurant.’ Cory Booker was not having it. Check out the side-eye he gave Beto: ‘Damn! That was going to be my thing.’
“But the moderators weren’t ready to take ‘speaks foreign language’ as an answer. ‘That’s time, sir. I’ll give you 10 seconds to answer if you want to answer the direct question. Would you support a 70% individual marginal tax rate? Yes, no, or pass?’ … ‘Um… No hablo Ingles.'”
Later in the night, Booker attempted to break out some Spanish of his own which led to Colbert joking: “Oh snap! It is on! It is on! It is an español-off. Or, as they say it in Spanish, “Grupo de idiotas.”
You can watch Colbert’s monologue below.
Night 2 of the Democratic Debate will feature some of the heavyweights in the presidential race with former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, California Senator Kamala Harris, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, California Representative Eric Swalwell, spiritual author Marianne Williamson, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang taking the stage live on MSNBC, CNBC, and Telemundo.
