While thanking his writing staff at the Writers Guild Awards (WGA), Stephen Colbert revealed a handful of jokes that ended up getting cut from The Late Show over the years.
The late-night host read aloud some of these quips while receiving the Walter Bernstein Award at the WGA’s 78th annual awards ceremony. The jokes included digs about President Donald Trump’s relationship with his daughter Ivanka, the Supreme Court overturning abortion rights, allegations made against Louis C.K. at the height of the #MeToo movement, and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s alleged affair with top aide Corey Lewandowski.
“Even though Trump famously and disturbingly said of Ivanka, ‘If she wasn’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her,’ I refused to tell the following joke when Trump brought her to the 2017 G20 summit: ‘I guess it was Take Your Daughter to Climax Day,’” Colbert shared.
The audience both applauded and gasped, to which Colbert responded, “That is why I didn’t tell that joke.”
Among the other jokes his writers offered to him, and Colbert himself cut, was a dig at First Lady Melania Trump.
“Please picture this,” he told the audience at New York City’s Edison Ballroom. “Melania, when she’s in the papal palace, she wore a long-sleeved long black dress with a black veil. ‘Well, you know what they say: dress for the job you want.’”
“Didn’t do that one, didn’t want to get a call,” he joked.
Of Louis C.K., Colbert shared a joke written by one of his female writers: “Oh my God, he masturbates like a toddler poops.”
“If you liked any of these ideas, please employ these lovely folks,” Colbert said, ending his acceptance speech by highlighting each of the 20 writers on his team.
The Walter Bernstein Award is given to “a Guild member who has demonstrated with creativity, grace, and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.”
The honor isn’t an annual one; it has only been presented twice previously. In 2017, journalist Jelani Cobb received the award for his Frontline documentary Policing the Police. In 2024, filmmaker Ron Nyswaner was the recipient for his body of work, including a 1993 film that unpacked discrimination against people with AIDS.
Colbert became the latest recipient of the award at Sunday night’s ceremony. He was presented with the honor by Emmy-winning comedy writer Robert Smigel. According to the Writers Guild of America, East, Colbert has “put his career on the line to fight back against a threat to democracy.”
Colbert paid tribute to both his team and his own mentors, including Smigel, whom Colbert worked alongside on The Dana Carvey Show.
“They are the best writing staff I have ever known at any show, and I have loved our time together, which wasn’t as much time as I would like,” he said. “I started in late-night as one of them. Thanks to Robert, Dana Carvey, Jon Stewart, and many other people, I ended up in front of the camera every night. Which is a very good job with its own responsibilities, meaning you can’t be in the writers’ room as much as you used to be.”
“And to some, hosting may seem like a hard job, and sometimes it is. But what’s also hard is hearing the laughter from the room down the hall and not [being] able to open it,” he added.
“If you’ve ever been lucky enough to be in that room, you will always want to be in that sound. And what is really gonna be hard is missing these people who, despite the fresh hell—whatever it is—that the news washes in, make that beautiful sound happen every day. So to them, and all of you, and Walter Bernstein, and to our guild, thank you so much.”
The Late Show was canceled in July 2025. The nature of the show’s cancellation has been questioned, as the decision was announced by CBS parent company Paramount, just days after Colbert ripped into the media powerhouse for coughing up millions in a settlement to the president. A month later, Paramount merged with Skydance, helmed by Trump associate and billionaire David Ellison.
The final episode of Colbert’s CBS show will air on Thursday, May 21. Colbert has been its host since Sept. 8, 2015.
