The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards opened with a rare sight: an entire theater of Hollywood heavyweights leaping to their feet in unison. Their applause wasn’t for the night’s host or a splashy musical number—it was for Stephen Colbert, making his first major public appearance since his Late Show was abruptly canceled earlier this year in what many saw as a concession to Donald Trump.

“Thank you very much, you are very kind,” Colbert told the roaring audience. “Sit down! Thank you very much, we’ve got to go!” The late-night veteran soaked in the ovation before delivering a signature dose of sharp self-deprecation.

“While I have your attention, is anyone hiring?” he asked, waving a folded résumé and a dated headshot. “I’ve got 200 very qualified candidates with me here tonight who will be available in June.” The joke was a nod to the hundreds of Late Show staffers set to lose their jobs when the program ends next spring.

In one of the night’s most memorable gags, Colbert handed his headshot down the aisle. “I only have the one, so Harrison Ford, could you get this to Spielberg?” he quipped, tossing the paper toward the legendary actor, who was seated nearby as a first-time Emmy nominee for Shrinking.

The bit instantly went viral, with stars like Sydney Sweeney caught on camera applauding enthusiastically. Colbert’s timing contrasted with a more muted reception for host Nate Bargatze, who opened with a sketch that included a dig at CBS—the very network airing the awards—by calling it “the network for white people.”

If the standing ovation foreshadowed anything, it was Colbert’s eventual triumph later in the night. After 10 years of hosting The Late Show, he finally secured his first Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series. His show had picked up a directing award at the Creative Arts Emmys the week prior, but the Talk Series category had long eluded him. Even his competitor, Jimmy Kimmel, had reportedly urged Emmy voters to back Colbert in solidarity against Trump’s influence.

When Colbert returned to the stage to accept his award, the audience once again erupted in chants of “Stephen! Stephen!” It was a rare moment of unity at an awards show often defined by spectacle.

“Sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it,” Colbert said in a moving acceptance speech. “Ten years after taking over The Late Show, despite it all, I have never loved my country more desperately.”

He concluded with a rallying cry equal parts patriotic and tongue-in-cheek: “God bless America! Stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor!”

The moment solidified Colbert not just as a beloved comedian and cultural critic, but as a figure whose voice—at least in the eyes of Emmy voters and his peers—still matters deeply in America’s turbulent political and media landscape.