Late-night host Stephen Colbert mocked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for his “silent defiance” of President Trump’s State of the Union Address, calling it “jack squat.”
Colbert issued his attack on Jeffries during a live episode on Tuesday following the president’s speech, responding to Jeffries urging “his members in the chamber to not make a scene.” Colbert described this as “silent defiance.”
“Which I believe is a bold rebrand of doing jack squat,” Colbert joked. “As Martin Luther King once said: ‘Shhh.’”
Colbert was responded to Jeffries advising his caucus before the State of the Union Address that they had two options, silent defiance or refusing to attend.
“The two options that are in front of us in our House [are] to either attend with silent defiance or to not attend and send a message to Donald Trump in that fashion, which will include participation in a variety of different alternate programming that is going to take place in and around the Capitol complex,” he said.
Despite Jeffries’ advisement, several Democrats were disruptive during the speech, most specifically Rep. Al Green (D-TX) when he was ejected for holding a sign that read, “Black people aren’t apes.”
“I wanted the president to see it, and he saw it, and I told him, Black people are not apes, and for him to do what he did was racist, and he knows it. But sometimes we have to let him know in the public that we know it,” Green told CNN shortly after being ejected.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) also disrupted the president’s speech when she yelled, “You have killed Americans,” and later, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The president clapped back to say, “These people are crazy. I’m telling you, they’re crazy.”