Stephen Colbert Lauds Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Upset Primary Win

Stephen Colbert celebrated the upset victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and broke down several other surprising election results on The Late Show Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez beat incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley, one of the most senior Democrats in Washington, in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th district. Not only was Ocasio-Cortez a first-time candidate, but Colbert pointed out that she’s just 28-years-old, joking, “When I was 28 I got my first can opener.”

Colbert praised Crowley for being gracious in defeat – he dedicated a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” to Ocasio-Cortez – though the Late Show host pointed out that President Donald Trump took the opportunity to slam the outgoing congressman, tweeting that Crowley “should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!”

Colbert, in turn, quipped at Trump, “You may have gotten rid of Crowley, but I doubt the Democratic Socialist, Latina from Queens is a huge fan of yours.”

Elsewhere, Colbert noted Mitt Romney’s return to politics after he won the Republican Senate primary in Utah, and he celebrated Oklahoma’s decision to legalize medical marijuana with a parody version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” aptly retitled, “Toke-lahoma.” Colbert also enlisted one of his writers, Ariel Dumas, to break down the unintended meaning of a political cartoon Trump tweeted Tuesday, which predicted Republican gains in the midterms with an image of Trump surfing a red wave.

As Dumas noted, “surfing the red wave” is also slang for menstruation, and she cracked, “The metaphor is fitting, because I think we can all agree these are heavy days. And sometimes you have to go with the flow. As Americans, we must sync-up and shed the wall!”