Stephen Colbert has denounced the Republican party as a “cult” after the first night of its pre-election National Convention.
The post-convention edition of The Late Show also featured a parody of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which cast prominent Republicans in various supervillain roles.
US President Donald Trump’s head was superimposed over that of arch-villain Thanos, played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Josh Brolin.
The Thanos/Trump hybrid is seen brandishing a golf club, in a reference to the president’s tendency to take to the green while in office.
US attorney general William Barr is mashed up with an alien beast, while Ivanka Trump and senior advisor Jared Kushner are shown to be Thanos’s Endgame henchmen.
First Lady Melania Trump also features, as Hela, the godlike villain played by Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell appears as Captain America nemesis Red Skull, while vice president Mike Pence makes an appearance seemingly only as himself.
Thanos/Trump is seen saying, “I don’t take responsibility at all,” and snapping his fingers, which removes US Postal Service mailboxes from existence and replaces them with statues of problematic historical figures, such as Stonewall Jackson.
The Republican party has released a resolution stating that it “will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda”, but controversially declined to produce a new platform for the convention, allegedly due to the effects of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Colbert responded to the decision by saying: “That’s not a political party, that’s a cult.”
Elsewhere on the programme, Colbert joked that the lack of a platform ”makes sense, given how much Trump struggles to get down from platforms”.
