President Donald Trump has fired off a bizarre parting shot at axed TV host Stephen Colbert, suggesting that a late-night bloodbath is on the horizon.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was canned as part of CBS’s MAGA-friendly pivot under new ownership. The host roasted both the network and the president during his star-studded finale on Thursday, with Trump taking the bait at 2 a.m. the next morning. “Colbert is finally finished at CBS,” Trump crowed.
He followed up just before 10 a.m. with an even more bizarre post, with a grim “RIP” sign-off.
“Stephen Colbert’s firing from CBS was the ‘Beginning of the End’ for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts. Others, of even less talent, to soon follow. May they all Rest in Peace! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he said, suggested American TV’s MAGA makeover is not done.
His initial post also referenced death. “Colbert is finally finished at CBS,” Trump wrote hours earlier. “Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!” he raged in the wee hours of Friday.
Colbert ended his 11-year run on the CBS late-night show on Thursday. The network announced the move last year, immediately prompting accusations of foul play against Trump. Critics say the thin-skinned president couldn’t handle Colbert and other late-night hosts’ frequent criticism, so he went after them, using his FCC attack dog, Brendan Carr, and other underhanded tactics.
Trump, however, denies he interfered in any way. “Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, Late Night,” he posted on Truth Social last year. “That is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT, and the fact that this deficiency was costing CBS $50 Million Dollars a year in losses — And it was only going to get WORSE!”
Colbert’s axing came just days after the 62-year-old host slammed the network’s MAGA-friendly parent company, Paramount, for its $16 million settlement with Trump, regarding an interview it broadcast with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump has gunned for Colbert for years. Back in 2024, for example, he wrote, “CBS should terminate his contract and pick almost anyone, right off the street, who would do better, and for FAR LESS MONEY.”
Colbert told People this week, ahead of his finale, that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration.
“I mean, how silly would it be? The ending of the show aside, which people can speculate about all they want, and I can’t argue with their speculations, but we’re clowns. How much does it diminish the office of the presidency to even notice what we say?”
Jimmy Kimmel is another late-night host in Trump’s crosshairs. He and the president have been locked in a long-running feud, but that was only made worse when Kimmel said Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow” just days before a gunman charged an event the president was the guest of honor at.
Trump has had adversarial relationships with most major late-night hosts for years, which have only intensified since he was elected president for a second time.
