Stephen Colbert Jokes ‘I’m Off to the Tropics! F– All Y’all’ After Learning About Newark Airport Trauma Leave | Video

During his Tuesday night monologue, while discussing the harrowing news this week of problems at Newark Airport, Stephen Colbert had an amusing reaction to one element of the story.

Pretending to have just learned about the concept of trauma leave, Colbert abruptly walked off stage, shouting “f— all y’all’ as he left the Ed Sullivan Theater where he films “The Late Show.” Of course, he had to come back on TV immediately, because he’d booked airfare through Newark airport.

Colbert was of course talking about the scary report that last week, Newark air traffic controllers lost contact with aircraft for 90 seconds, an emergency that could have caused real disasters. Tragedy was averted but the airport has been beset by delays ever since.

“Quick question before we get started, anyone here from out of the country? All right? Well, you live here now because you’re never going to want to fly again, because for the past week, there have been 1000s of delays at Newark Airport, right across the river, including hundreds of cancelations just this morning,” Colbert explained at the start of his monologue.

“We now know that culprit was a 90-second blackout during which air traffic controllers temporarily lost radar and communications with the aircraft under their control, unable to see, hear or talk to them. Oh, no, see here, those are three fairly important things,” Colbert continued.

Colbert continued by first noting that according to the subsequent investigation, the outage was caused by a fried piece of copper wire. He then mocked New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s response, before turning his attention to the response from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who Colbert described as a “White Lotus guest remembering what he did at the Full Moon Party.”

Colbert noted that Duffy blamed Joe Biden for the mishap, and pretended to agree. “Yes, this problem has been going on for years. Biden should have done something about it, or really, really the guy before him should have done something about it,” Colbert said. “The truth is, Biden did do something about it. In the 2021 infrastructure bill, he had $25 billion to improve airports. Unfortunately, all $25 billion was spent on Logan airport’s Peck relief area with many fire hydrants.”

“But it didn’t help that once Trump got into office, the DOGE bros immediately fired 400 staffers at the FAA, including maintenance mechanics and employees who work on electronic issues,” Colbert continued. “Those are the people who do the stuff. There are plenty of useless people you could have fired, like the TSA agent who says you can’t bring in a snow globe. I hate having to chug my snow globe right before security.

Eventually, Colbert noted that the barely averted disaster only became known because an air traffic controller went public, warning that Newark wasn’t safe to travel through and that people should avoid the airport “at all costs.”

“Counterpoint, if you could afford ‘all costs,’ you wouldn’t be in Newark,” Colbert joked. “It won’t get better anytime soon, because, due to the blackout, some air traffic controllers are now out on a 45 day trauma leave.”

Suddenly, Colbert stopped and said, “Oh, wait, wait a second. There’s such a thing as trauma leave?”

“Byeeee,” Colbert said as he walked away, waving to the camera sarcastically. “I’m off to the tropics!”

“F— all y’all,” Colbert added while flipping the audience off. The crowd of course loved it, chanting “Stephen! Stephen!” Colbert quickly returned to the stage, joking, “Damn it. I forgot my tickets out of Newark.”

Watch the whole monologue below:

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