Stephen Colbert Axed: Donald Trump Warns He Has a 'Message' for Late-Night Nemesis

Stephen Colbert's long-running Late Show will air its final episode on CBS in New York on Thursday night, and Donald Trump has warned he has a 'message' for his late‑night nemesis, though the 79-year-old President admitted he does not yet know what it will be.

The Late Show was cancelled by CBS in July last year after more than three decades on air. The programme first launched in 1993 with David Letterman and became one of America's defining late‑night franchises before Stephen Colbert, now 62, took over in 2015.

At the time of the axing, the network insisted the decision was driven by finances rather than ratings or politics, a line that has been met with scepticism in some corners of the US media and by Colbert's own fans.

On Thursday, CBS is promising an 'extended' finale for Colbert, stretching beyond the usual one‑hour slot. The broadcaster has not confirmed how long the send‑off will run or who will appear alongside the host in his last outing behind the famous desk. Viewers are, in effect, being asked to tune in on trust.

Trump's intervention arrived in a typically half‑finished fashion. Speaking to reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, he was asked whether he had anything to say to Colbert as the curtain comes down on The Late Show.

'I'll have a message at a later date,' he replied, without elaborating on what that message might be or when he intends to deliver it.

Trump's Running Feud With Stephen Colbert And The Late Show

The news came after a particularly bitter period in the already fraught relationship between Trump and Stephen Colbert.

Three days before CBS confirmed the cancellation last July, Colbert used his opening monologue to attack Paramount, the network's parent company, over its $16 million settlement with Trump.

'I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles, it's big, fat bribe,' he told his audience.

It was the sort of line that made Colbert a liberal darling and a conservative hate‑watch, and it dropped just as corporate patience with the show, at least officially, was said to be running thin.

CBS, for its part, has insisted the timing was coincidental. The company has repeatedly described the end of The Late Show as 'purely a financial decision,' unrelated to Colbert's politics or to his sometimes blistering coverage of the Trump presidency.

Trump, unsurprisingly, has done nothing to calm that speculation. After the cancellation was announced, he used his Truth Social platform to claim 'everybody is saying' he was 'solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert,' before denying it in characteristically back‑handed fashion.

'That is not true!' he wrote, insisting 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!'

Again, there is no publicly available evidence to support the $50 million figure or Trump's assessment of Colbert's abilities. CBS has not put a number on any losses associated with the show and has not responded directly to the president's claims.

'We're Clowns': Colbert Shrugs At Trump's Anger

Speaking to People this week, Stephen Colbert tried to defuse some of the drama surrounding The Late Show and its cancellation. Asked about suggestions that Trump or his allies might have had a hand in the decision, he said he had 'no fear' of the administration.

'I mean, how silly would it be?' he said. '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?'

It is a revealing line. On one level, Colbert is defending his former writers' room as what it has always been, a group of comedians riffing on the news. On another, he is puncturing Trump's insistence that late‑night television is some grand political theatre with him cast as permanent villain‑in‑chief.

Trump has kept Colbert in his rhetorical firing line regardless. Earlier this year, he described the host as a 'complete and total loser,' urging CBS to 'terminate his contract and pick almost anyone, right off the street, who would do better, and for FAR LESS MONEY.'

In another broadside, he dismissed Colbert as 'not funny... not wise' and 'VERY BORING,' adding that The Late Show was 'dying from a complete lack of viewers.'

Late‑night peers have been less circumspect. Jimmy Kimmel, a frequent Trump target and one of Colbert's closest allies in the time‑slot wars, devoted part of his Wednesday monologue to the looming finale.

'I think you know how I feel about the fact that [the crew of The Late Show] are being pushed out,' Kimmel told his ABC audience. 'I hope the people who did the pushing feel ashamed of themselves tonight, although I know they probably won't.'

Between Trump's teasing 'message', Colbert's own shrugging defiance and Kimmel's on‑air solidarity, the final Late Show is shaping up less as a quiet goodbye than as a coda to a long, often acrid argument about how far comedy can or should go when a president is watching, and clearly still keeping score.