US President Donald Trump calls the late night host Stephen Colbert immediately take it off the air, calling it “the walking dead.”
“Stephen Colbert is a pathetic loser, he has neither the talent nor anything else necessary to succeed in show business.” Trump wrote. “Now that CBS fired him but left him out to dry, his ratings have actually gotten worse, along with his non-existent ratings.”
Trump said Colbert was “motivated by hatred and malice.”
“Dead man walking! CBS should 'put him down' NOW, it's the humane thing to do,” Trump added in his midnight diatribe.
Screenshot of Donald Trump's Truth Social post.
@realDonaldTrump / Social Truth
IN follow up postTrump asked: “Who has the worst late-night host: CBS, ABC or NBC??? They all have three things in common: high salaries, lack of talent, REALLY LOW RATINGS!”
“If the network newscasts and their nightly shows are almost 100% negative towards President Donald Trump, MAGA and the Republican Party, shouldn't their very valuable broadcast licenses be revoked? I say YES,” Trump added.
Screenshot of Donald Trump's Truth Social post.
@realDonaldTrump / Social Truth
Trump appeared to take aim at Colbert after CBS aired a rerun of his Dec. 8 episode. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hours after the broadcast Kennedy Center Honorsorganized by Trump.
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This isn't the first time Trump has targeted Colbert this year.
In July, the US President noted CBS' decision to cancel “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, and the final episode will air in May 2026.
“I really like that Colbert was fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump posted in Truth Social.
Colbert replied to Trump with some choice words during his show's opening monologue.
“It dawned on me over the weekend that they were killing our show, but they made one mistake: they kept me alive,” Colbert said, looking straight into the camera. “And now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off. I can finally tell the unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now.”
Colbert said he “doesn't like” Trump, adding that he doesn't think he “has the skill set to be president” and that he's “not qualified.”
Colbert then read Trump's Truth Social post and said on Eloquence Cam: “How dare you, sir? Can a talentless man write the next satirical one-liner? Go to hell.”
Trump responded to Colbert and said he had nothing to do with the show's cancellation.
In a post on Truth Social in late July, Trump said “everyone” thought he was “singlely responsible” for the end of the late-night talk show, but he said the rumors were “not true!”
“Everyone says I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS's Late Night,” Trump wrote. “This is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT and the fact that this lack was costing CBS $50 million a year in losses – and it's only going to get WORSE!”
Trump went on to say that “an even less talented Jimmy Kimmelthe “next” to lose his job, followed by the “weak and very insecure person.” Jimmy Fallon“
“The only real question is, who will go first? Show business and television are a very simple business. If you have ratings, you can say or do anything. If you don't, you are always the victim,” Trump wrote. “Colbert became a victim of himself, the other two will follow.”
In August, Trump stepped up his claims that late-night hosts Kimmel and Fallon would be the next to lose their jobs.
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