White House Communications Director Steven Cheung offered up some colorful commentary on The Late Show‘s Stephen Colbert on Thursday in a completely unprompted X post.
Sharing a column from Variety about how Colbert is navigating his final season as a late-night host on CBS, Cheung, who is known for hurling insults, wrote, “Stephen Colbert is a sad and pathetic excuse for a human being. He’s kicking and screaming like a baby because he’s an entitled prick who has lost touch with reality.”
“The fact is that he will soon be forgotten because nobody likes a loser who killed the legacy of The Late Show,” he added.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Cheung for additional comment.
The Variety piece, a column by Daniel D’Addario, suggests that guests’ emotional responses to his upcoming exit are encouraged by Colbert’s team, arguing, “The endless bouquets being tossed Colbert’s way have started to make the studio smell a bit cloying.”
CBS canceled The Late Show in July a week before the merger between billionaire nepo baby David Ellison’s Skydance and Paramount was approved by the FCC.
Its last episode is scheduled to air on May 21. The Daily Beast has contacted CBS for comment.
Cheung, 43, has served as President Trump’s Communications Director since his return to the White House in January 2025. Since, he has developed a reputation for hurling insults at his ideological enemies.
Earlier on Thursday, Cheung unloaded on California Governor Gavin Newsom for criticizing his fellow Trump lackey Stephen Miller.
In an interview on The David Pakman Show, Newsom railed against Miller’s “outsized” influence on government policy, calling him “the dark heart of the administration.”
“The Master of the Dark Arts Stephen Miller lives rent-free in Gavin Newscum’s head,” Cheung fired back on X, “as the disgraced governor sits in his cuck chair showing the world how much of a loser he is.”
On Tuesday, Cheung fired off a furious post directed at Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, using the president’s nickname for him. “Da Nang D---head is a known liar and fraud. Look no further than his lie about serving in Vietnam. He didn’t‚” in response to a clip of Blumenthal discussing a briefing he attended about the president’s war in Iran.
“I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war. My answers have been unanswered,” Blumenthal told reporters after the briefing. “I guess I am most concerned about the threat to American lives, of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iran. We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives for it.”
The senator has admitted in the past that he misstated serving in Vietnam, when he had in fact received multiple deferments from 1965 to 1970. He began serving in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1970, but never actually deployed to Vietnam.
Ramping up his attacks on Blumenthal last year, the president accused him of lying about his military service and called for an investigation.
Cheung has also previously taken aim at other late-night hosts, throwing a tantrum after Jimmy Kimmel tore into the president’s State of the Union address.
“Jimmy Kimmel is a sad, angry, and insufferable idiot who probably didn’t even watch the speech and is recycling his tired, ineffective material,” Cheung wrote on X, using similar insults to those he hurled at Colbert on Thursday.
“Reminder: Jimmy dressed in blackface,” he added, referring to Kimmel’s history of using blackface in his impressions of the Utah Jazz’s Karl Malone.
Despite Cheung’s reputation, Trump biographer Michael Wolff believes his persona is just theater.
“Steven is actually a really sweet guy,” said Wolff—whom Cheung has previously called a “lying sack of s--t”—on The Daily Beast Podcast.
Wolff went on to add that there was “a sort of tragic feel” about Cheung because of his size, arguing that he has to be “hidden away” and can’t serve as Trump’s press secretary because the candidate “has to be a young woman.”
Wolff also observed that Cheung’s insults are entirely for the president’s benefit. “Whatever Steven says or does is directed to an audience of one,” he said. “He issues these kinds of vituperative comments, which Trump likes. ‘That’s a good one,’ Trump will say.”
