Stephen Colbert must
have been kidding when he said Monday night that “the gloves are off” and therefore he can now “finally speak unvarnished truth to power” and say what he “really”
thinks about Donald Trump.
But anyone familiar with Colbert’s history in late-night TV is well aware that he has said what he “really”
thinks about Trump in an “unvarnished” way for years.
A deep dive into the vast TV Blog archives comes up with one instance that was
particularly extreme for its time, or possibly any time.
It was in May 2017, a few months after Trump’s swearing-in for his first term in January of
that year.
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The occasion for Colbert’s ire on this particular day -- Tuesday, May 3, 2017 -- was an incident two days earlier on “Face the
Nation,” where Trump was being interviewed by anchor John Dickerson.
When Dickerson pressed Trump on
accusations Trump had made earlier in the year that the Obama administration had wiretapped his private phones, Trump abruptly ended the interview.
So, two days later,
Colbert took it upon himself to fly to the defense of Dickerson and “Face the Nation” with a series of vulgar epithets.
Most notably, he referred to
Trump as a “prick-tator” -- which was not bleeped -- and as Vladimir Putin’s “c--- holster,” which was bleeped. The c-word, like “prick,” is slang for
“penis.”
Speaking of which, Colbert also made a series of jokes about the size of Trump’s penis.
The diatribe raised some eyebrows at the time for its language, which was extreme for 2017 and possibly for 2025
as well.
At least one critic back then wrote that Colbert “damaged his own integrity with his vile attack.”
The same guy opined that Colbert “put himself on the same level as his target” by “getting down
in a gutter to make a point about how he feels about the president.”
Cut to the present day and the same could be said about Colbert’s pointed
“Go f--- yourself!” that he aimed at Trump in his Monday monologue.
Colbert, 61, made the
remarks about his newfound, gloves-off freedom in his monologue on Monday’s “Late Show,” his first appearance on the show since last Thursday’s announcement that the show will
end next year.
It is reasonable to wonder why Colbert is licking his chops at the prospect of unleashing a new level of attacks on Trump following the news
that CBS is cutting Colbert loose and “retiring” his show next May.
There is no evidence -- at least, not yet -- that Trump had anything to do
with the company’s decision to end Colbert’s show. The network said the decision was based on financial challenges related to late-night TV.
On
the show, Colbert positioned Monday’s attack on Trump, in which Colbert hammered Trump over Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, as retaliation for Trump gloating on TruthSocial that
he “absolutely loves that Colbert got fired.”
The TV Blog is in no position to know whether Colbert has trafficked in vulgarities similar to the ones he
leveled at Trump in 2017 throughout his 10 seasons on “The Late Show.”
But spoofing, satirizing and attacking Trump has been Job One for Colbert ever
since he took over the show after David Letterman left.
He even branched out into animated Trump satire when he was an executive producer of “The
Cartoon President,” a series that aired on Showtime in 2018 (pictured above).
It was no wonder Colbert climbed aboard the Trump bandwagon. He took over
“The Late Show” in September 2015, a few months after Trump announced at Trump Tower that he was running for president.
Colbert took the Trump
ball and ran with it, which seemed like a good idea at the time. By February 2017, Colbert’s all-Trump, all-the-time strategy paid off when “The Late Show” passed “The Tonight
Show” in the ratings to become the No. 1 show in late-night.
Today, however, “The Late Show” is a money loser that will cease to exist in
10 months, while Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” is, by all appearances, thriving.