Watch Colbert Recap VP Debate, Honor the Night’s Real Star: The Fly on Mike Pence’s Head

Stephen Colbert delivered a live Late Show monologue that recapped Wednesday’s vice presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, but also focused on the night’s real star: The fly that landed on Pence’s head.

“Tonight’s debate above all proved once and for all by comparison proved what a flaming turd pile last week’s debate was,” Colbert said. “Trump’s debate performance last week was a hurricane of bad faith; it bordered on a demonstration of the banality of evil.”

“Tonight, you were faced with the banality of banality,” the host continued. “I spent the whole debate on the middle of my seat. It was everything we expected: Pence talked over all the women in the room, moderator tried to call for order, vice president got a couple good licks in, and Senator Harris picked up a broken pool cue and beat Pence over the head with the Trump administration’s failures.”

Colbert then summarized the debate, including points focused on the White House’s disastrous response to the coronavirus (“Pence struggled to explain how they shanked the coronavirus crisis so badly,” Colbert said), climate change and other topics. But the real highlight of the debate was the fly that took residence in Pence’s hair for over two minutes mid-debate. “He’s so full of crap he’s attracting flies!” Colbert cracked.

“God bless you, fly. I guess the Plexiglass wasn’t high enough. But listen, all joking aside, thoughts and prayers to that fly’s family. It’s got to quarantine for two weeks now. We gotta get that fly to Walter Reed.”

The Late Show host continued, “Then minutes later, they were talking about a very important issue but I missed the whole thing because the fly was still on Mike Pence’s head, and it stayed there for over two minutes. Two minutes! Meaning that fly has a longer attention span than the President of the United States. That’s a long time for a fly. It had a life there. It joined SoulCycle. It changed its voter registration to Mike Pence’s head.”