Stephen Colbert calls out Tucker Carlson for stealing panda story

On the same night of the infamous Michael Cohen raid, Tucker Carlson chose to focus on a story about pandas… which Stephen Colbert says has been done.

Who cares about breaking national news when we could be talking about pandas mating instead?

Last night, Stephen Colbert brought up the Michael Cohen raid on his Late Show monologue. Anyone following this story knows that it’s huge news, and as such, it was prominently featured on every major news outlet. Well, almost every news outlet, except for Fox News, which seemed to have more important things to discuss.

As Colbert shows through the use of video clips, Tucker Carlson over at Fox spent a lot of time speaking about pandas. Among other things, Carlson mentions the sex-crazed and aggressive behavior of pandas, and how “thank God” they don’t want to just kill us. “Basically he said something really bad could happen, but it doesn’t,” Colbert spells out, showing how pointless the discussion really was. He compares the situation to saying whales could be attacking people if they were hopped up on meth, but they’re too busy being whales.

But that nonsense isn’t even what irks Colbert the most. Feeling that the segment was familiar, Colbert recalled doing something very similar on The Colbert Report – when he was “playing a crazy person.” Colbert then shows a clip from 2011 of his alter ego speaking about pandas, calling them godless killing machines. “Tucker Carlson stole my bit!” Colbert laments in the present day. It’s funny but also sad how it’s hard to tell a difference between Colbert’s joke character and a real news personality.

You can watch the full segment in the YouTube video below.

Next: SNL: Black Panther competes on Black Jeopardy

For more from Colbert, tune in to new episodes of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert weeknights at 11:35 pm EST on CBS!