EXCERPT:
COLBERT: "Right now is being recorded at 7:00 P.M., in light of, well, in light of the darkness. The United States came close to a great tragedy on Saturday when, at a political rally down in Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old gunman shot and nearly killed a former president and the man who today became the 2024 Republican nominee. My immediate reaction when I saw this on Saturday were horror at what was unfolding, relief that Donald Trump had lived, and frankly, grief for my beautiful country. And then fresh horror as we learned that attendees had been also been shot, one of whom died at the rally. So, as we have done many times in the past when some tragic event has shocked the nation, I’m starting the show tonight talking at the desk, though I could just as easily start the show moaning on the floor, because how many times do we need to learn the lesson that violence has no role in our politics, that the entire objective of a democracy is to fight out our differences with, as the saying goes, 'Ballot, not a bullet?'”