Stephen Colbert and Beto O’Rourke talk punk rock and politics

As the midterms approach, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just gave a Democratic challenger a big introduction: Beto O’Rourke.

Now that it’s September, we’re about two months away from the midterms, and with the Senate contentious (although FiveThirtyEight suggests that the odds of Republicans retaining control are pretty high), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert gave a big opportunity to an insurgent challenger from Texas for Senate: Beto O’Rourke.

Granted, Colbert’s first question was about whether or not O’Rourke was aware of all the national attention. The real question should be something along the lines of how O’Rourke feels about all the attention — and how much more he’s probably going to get from sitting in one of Colbert’s guest chairs. (Vanity Fair wrote about him in May of last year; Rolling Stone followed last September, and the attention has only increased since then.)

Before the interview even kicked off, though, Colbert had a joke-laden monologue that addressed some of the GOP’s response to the rise of O’Rourke, with a sly allusion to “Better Know a District” from The Colbert Report:

In the above clip, Colbert refers to a Politico story from four days ago, which also includes Senator John Cornyn (R-TX, whom O’Rourke also mentioned by name in his interview later) reportedly saying that “We’re not bluffing. This is real, and this is a serious threat.”

The interview itself didn’t last too long, but pay attention to the things that O’Rourke emphasizes:

A few phrases stuck out to this writer. First, O’Rourke says, several times, that he’s been visiting every county in Texas; therefore, he’s not just campaigning in traditionally Democratic areas, like cities. Second, he uses the phrase “moment of truth” once or twice, which strikes a hopeful note in line with his claims about how the goal isn’t to run “against” anything.

The midterms are on Nov. 6.