The Late Show with Stephen Colbert went live on Tuesday night following President Joe Biden’s very first State of the Union address. And as it sometimes goes with live television, everything didn’t go exactly as planned.
About eight minutes into his monologue, Colbert ran into some technical difficulties while queueing up a clip.
“Biden touted his COVID response,” Colbert said before a clip rolled of Biden announcing that the Department of Justice would soon name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud. Wow,” Colbert remarked, clearly of the knowledge that the joke lined up was intended to accompany an entirely different clip. “I didn’t know Joe was in the cast —” He didn’t get much further than that before doubling over, laughing.
“Wow, I didn’t know Joe was in the cast in the next season of Euphoria!” Colbert quipped. “There ya go, boom! Nothing like a live show, ladies and gentlemen.”
As you can see in the above clip, the blooper has since been edited out, however, you can still see Colbert’s reaction to landing the joke on his second attempt. He continued, making a joke about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
“Biden finished his speech with the unveiling of his big unity agenda, and the first item stuck out to me,” Colbert continued, before turning to a clip of Biden saying, “Let’s take on mental health.”
“I can’t believe he made a direct attack on Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Colbert exclaimed, to cheers from the audience. At that point, he was able to finish the rest of his monologue uneventfully, but it just goes to show that you never know what’s going to happen on live television.