Stephen Colbert addressed the public Monday night after his television crew was arrested at the US Capitol; praising his employees’ “first-degree puppetry.”

“The Capitol police were just doing their job, my staff was just doing their job, everyone was very professional, everyone was very calm,” the host explained. “My staffers were detained, processed and released. A very unpleasant experience for my staff.”

 

His team was arrested Thursday for “unlawful entry” at the Longworth House Office Building of the US Capitol Complex.

“After they’d finished their interviews, [my staffers] were doing some last-minute puppetry and jokey make-em-ups in a hallway, when Triumph and my folks were approached and detained by Capitol Police,” Colbert said.

He continued, “A lot of paperwork for the Capitol police but a fairly simple story… until the next night when a couple of the TV people started claiming that my puppet squad had quote, ‘committed insurrection’ at the U.S. Capitol building.”

“Responding officers observed seven individuals, unescorted and without Congressional ID, in a sixth-floor hallway,” the police said in a statement. “The building was closed to visitors, and these individuals were determined to be a part of a group that had been directed by the USCP to leave the building earlier in the day.”

Read the full report here.