One night after addressing the audience at the DNC, Nancy Pelosi decided to venture out and grant an interview to comedian Stephen Colbert at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago. To put it mildly, things did not go as planned. Pelosi was there to pimp her new book, "The Art of Power." Cobert played along for a bit, but the conversation inevitably turned to the topic of Israel and Hamas and the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. It turns out that a number of pro-Hamas protesters had infiltrated the studio audience and one of them immediately stood up and began shouting "Free Palestine." More people joined in. Colbert, sensing trouble ahead, quickly took the show to a break. But to his credit, he promised the protesters that he would delve into the subject with Pelosi when they returned. And he did. (NY Post)

Anti-Israel protesters interrupted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Tuesday night.

Pelosi had joined Colbert for a live taping of the late-night talk show at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago one day after appearing at the Democratic National Convention, which is being held nearly 3 miles away at the United Center.

The 84-year-old California Democrat was discussing her book “The Art of Power” when the subject turned to the Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.

I will go so far as to offer props to Stephen Colbert for stepping away from his role as a comedian and actually addressing some of the concerns of his audience. Pelosi was there to talk about her new book, but a portion of the audience was having none of it. They wanted to hear about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, that being the ongoing war in Gaza and Pelosi's position in terms of continuing United States support for our ally, Israel. When the show returned from the break, Colbert brought up the question.

Pelosi spoke of the breaking news that Israel had signed on to a ceasefire agreement. She said she "hoped" that Hamas would agree as well, but made no mention of the fact that Hamas had already announced that the conditions Israel placed on the deal were unacceptable to them. She finished up that answer by declaring that "War has no role in a civilized society." This was clearly intended to appease the pro-Hamas protesters, but her statement seemed to fall flat.

Colbert gamely attempted to address the protesters' questions even as the protesters kept interrupting. He pointed out to Pelosi that some of the protesters found her answers to be "unsatisfying." Pelosi pointed out that she was in favor of a "two-state solution" which seemed to please some in the crowd, but not all of them. At one point, Colbert pleaded with the audience to "please listen to her answer."

Let's also take a moment to address the rather awkward title of Nancy Pelosi's book. She decided on "The Art of Power" and that title was probably locked in before the recent ouster of Joe Biden. The irony here is that over the past several weeks, we witnessed one of the greatest exercises of undemocratic power in modern American political history, and Nancy Pelosi was the one at the helm with a knife between her teeth. When cajoling Biden to step aside failed, Pelosi threatened to embarrass him in public. Biden had previously stated repeatedly that "only the Lord Almighty" could convince him to step aside. Who knew that the Lord would arrive wearing designer heels and in the form of an elderly woman who was even older than Biden himself? It was a coup, plain and simple. And it was one of the most glaring examples of the exercise of nearly limitless power inside the swamp that we're ever likely to witness.