Donald Trump has shared his less-than-glowing thoughts on the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, comparing him to a “dead person” and throwing him into a bin in a new AI-generated video.
The long-running late-night show aired for the last time on Thursday (May 21), after Colbert announced on air last summer that CBS had cancelled it in what the network described as “purely a financial decision”.
Many have speculated that the move was politically motivated, with Colbert among the most prominent critics of the Trump administration.
The President posted a message on his Truth Social platform in the early morning hours on Friday (May 22), and called the longtime CBS host a “jerk” and celebrated the show’s finale roughly an hour after the episode concluded.
“Colbert is finally finished at CBS,” he 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!”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 22, 2026
Trump also went on to share an AI-generated video of himself grabbing Colbert and throwing him into a bin. On X/Twitter, the reaction to the clip – similarly to when his administration shared an AI rendition of Drake’s latest album cover – was overwhelmingly negative.
“Posting more boomer AI slop instead of fixing our broken fucked up country,” one user commented. “You really are useless.”
Robert De Niro was equally unflinching when it came to Trump during his last appearance on Colbert’s talk show, referencing the unreleased files relating to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
De Niro had swapped places with Colbert, and asked him “What number were you thinking of?”, in reference to a question the host asked many guests over the years.
“There’s a hint as to what the answer is,” Colbert replied, “because whenever somebody answers the question and gives the wrong answer, I always say no; and when I give the right answer, which has happened at least twice — Meryl Streep and Ethan Hawke guessed correctly — and Ethan Hawke goes immediately, ‘I know what it is. It’s three.’ That’s the number I was thinking of.”
“OK,” De Niro said. “Because I thought it would have been two million point five, or two and a half million. That’s the number of Epstein files Trump still hasn’t released.” The punchline drew rapturous applause from the studio audience.
Bruce Springsteen also made a jab directed at Trump during his interview on the penultimate episode on Wednesday (May 20), and said Colbert was “the first guy in America who lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke”, and “because [Paramount-Skydance owners] Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want”.
Trump publicly responded to the news of Late Night‘s cancellation at the time, writing: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Colbert hit back at the President on his next show, feigning outrage and saying: “How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?”.
Turning to a camera marked “Eloquence Cam”, Colbert deadpanned in a New York accent: “Go fuck yourself”.