The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had a lot of fun with the word boof

How many different ways could Stephen Colbert fit a reference to boofing in his latest monologue about the attempt to confirm Brett Kavanaugh?

During his monologue on last night’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, host Stephen Colbert referred to the past week in national news as “an emotional keelhauling,” which seems about right, frankly.

Fortunately for us (and Colbert), one word from Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook entry is hilarious to say, even if the process to which it apparently refers is not hilarious. That word is boof, conjugated to boofed in the yearbook in question.

So, naturally, it made a lot of appearances in Colbert’s monologue as he covered all of the developments in the ongoing attempt to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Warning: there are some raunchy references and a few bleeps from CBS, so it may not be safe for work.

But, as usual, he also came armed with news articles and tape of the Donald Trump press conference yesterday. Vox has done a breakdown of that press conference that focuses on a few specific moments, including an exchange between Cecilia Vega of ABC News and Trump. While Vox declines to weigh in on whether he said “thinking” or “thanking,” Elle and other contemporaneous reports come down on the “thinking” side of it; the transcript released from the White House opted for the latter. (Edit: The transcript has since been changed, which is reflected in the article linked in the previous sentence.)

Meanwhile, Colbert also talked about a statement from Chad Ludington, who attended Yale with Kavanaugh. Yes, that is his real name; Colbert’s rattling off of other names that fit right in is impressive and a sly complement to the surface-level puns about boofing. At the same time, though, Colbert’s audience chanting “boof, boof, boof” is pretty fantastic.

As for his claims that the Republican Party might face a shellacking in next month’s midterm elections? Well … here’s one opinion from NBC News on new voter registrations, suggesting that it might just happen.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights on CBS.