Stephen Colbert resurrected his conservative alter ego to make a pointed comment on the Jimmy Kimmel vs. MAGA saga.
On Thursday’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the host started by joking, “We still on the air? Fantastic. Apparently, Brendan Carr has not seen tonight’s episode yet.”
It was Carr, the Trump-appointed FCC chair, who bullied ABC into cancelling Kimmel’s late-night talk show on Wednesday after jokes about Donald Trump’s reaction to the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Declaring talk show hosts as among “America’s most vulnerable”, Colbert then introduced CBS’s new ombudsman—his MAGA-friendly identical twin cousin, also named Stephen Colbert.
“Apparently, having a conservative overseeing your programming is a way to stay on the air,” the OG Colbert said. “And I would love to be able to finish out the last season of my show.”
The right-wing cousin character first appeared on The Daily Show in 1997, and was then a regular on The Colbert Report from 2005, often satirizing Fox News hosts.
Colbert—whose own show has also been pulled off air under pressure from the Trump administration—also revived The Word segment from The Colbert Report, which was performed in character as his conservative cousin.
Rising from under the desk, the right-wing Colbert said, “America is facing perhaps its greatest crisis in 249 years. You see, people are saying things that hurt Donald Trump’s feelings.”
Staying in character, Colbert discussed free speech and the First Amendment.
“So, how just how do you balance your rights with your duty not to make the Commander in Chief fill his Depends with tears?” he asked, referencing the brand of adult diapers.
The solution was silence, as he gave advice to other TV hosts to avoid controversial clashes with FCC Chair Carr.
“You can have your rights just as long as you don’t use them,” Colbert suggested. “All you have to do is repeat whatever the approved message from the White House is today.”
The plan continued, with a series of jokes about Eric Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and the president’s “thin skin, thick cankles” appearing on screen.
“You have a responsibility to do more than just censor yourself,” Colbert insisted. “You need to turn in your friends. Write down, write down what they say. Get them fired. Then a true patriot can take their job saying nothing on TV.”
“And most importantly, don’t ever complain,” he added. “No matter what the president does, even if he sends the army to your hometown, just shut up and take it.”
“So give up, America,” he concluded. “Just give up and stop saying anything that might upset the president. And if you think that’s a terrible idea, no, you don’t.”
Before launching into character, Colbert opened Thursday’s show with the statement: “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.”
Showing his support for the ABC host, he called the network’s decision to pause Kimmel’s program hours before it was due to air “blatant censorship.”
“It always starts small,” Colbert said. “Remember, in week one of his presidency, ‘Call it Gulf of America.’ Sure, seems harmless, but with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.”
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