President Donald Trump‘s wrath toward late-night comedian who relentlessly mock him isn’t any secret. So it was no surprise that Trump seized the chance to get a dig in at Stephen Colbert after the host signed off from CBS’s “The Late Show” for the last time Thursday.
In a post at 1:52 a.m. ET, the U.S. president wrote on his Truth Social account, “Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no rankings, no life. He was like a dead person. You possibly can take any person off of the road and they might be higher than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
After CBS announced last summer that it was canceling “The Late Show,” Trump gloated that “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” A number of days in a while the show, Colbert fired back — telling the president, “Go fuck yourself” (with the f-bomb bleeped out on the CBS telecast).
Colbert’s final show on May 21 featured a roster of celebrity and musical guests, including Paul McCartney, who shut down the facility to the Ed Sullivan Theater in a prerecorded bit to bring the curtain down on the show after 11 seasons.
Others who appeared on “The Late Show” send-off included Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Meadows and Tig Notaro.
CBS insisted the cancellation of “The Late Show” was “purely a financial decision” coming after a years-long decline within the economics of late-night TV. But many observers and fans consider Colbert was axed because Donald Trump didn’t like being the goal of the host’s jokes. Trump had called for CBS to drag the plug early on “The Late Show” last December, calling Colbert “a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything obligatory for show business success.”
Last fall Colbert had addressed the query of whether CBS canceled his show was politically motivated, saying that was “an inexpensive thing to think” but that it wouldn’t be “fruitful” for him “to interact in that speculation.” Outside the Ed Sullivan Theater on Thursday, several Colbert fans told Variety that they believed CBS did in actual fact kill the show for political reasons.
Trump also has raged against Jimmy Kimmel, calling on Disney and ABC to fireplace him after Kimmel’s joke concerning the First Lady. The April 23 episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” featured a fake White House Correspondents’ Dinner and throughout the bit, Kimmel quipped that Melania had the glow of an “expectant widow.”