President Donald Trump delivered a bitter 2 a.m. screed against Stephen Colbert Friday, just hours after the late-night comedian delivered a star-studded final performance to a massive audience.
"Colbert is finally finished at CBS," Trump wrote. "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!"
The late-night tirade came after Trump had teased on Wednesday that he would make a comment on Colbert's final episode "at a later date."
Colbert, 62, closed out his 11-year run on The Late Show in front of a crowd that included Paul McCartney, Paul Rudd, Bryan Cranston, and Ryan Reynolds. Fans who couldn't get into the live audience crowded the street outside the New York City Ed Sullivan Theater, while viewership of the broadcast was expected to be massive.
McCartney capped the evening by playing "Hello Goodbye" before he and Colbert together pulled the plug — literally — on the show.
CBS announced the cancellation last July, just three days after Colbert blasted the network's MAGA-friendly parent company, Paramount, over its $16 million settlement with Trump. Despite repeatedly savaging Colbert on social media, Trump tried to distance himself from the axing at the time.
"Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, Late Night," Trump posted 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!"
Trump's overnight screed recycled language from a 2024 Truth Social attack in which he had written that CBS "should terminate his contract and pick almost anyone, right off the street, who would do better, and for FAR LESS MONEY."
"It's heartbreaking to see how one man can silence a whole nation," Joshua McGehee told CNN. "When Colbert can be silenced for being critical, it puts everyone at tension to be themselves and to speak their minds."
Alan Tipert said he traveled all the way from Georgia "to witness the death of free speech."
"I mean, how silly would it be?" Colbert told People. "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?"