Stephen Colbert is a talentless potty-mouth who’s only still on television because of Donald Trump. At least, that appears to be the way that President Trump sees it.
In an interview with Time, Trump ripped into the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” host, who recently made headlines by joking that the only thing that Trump’s mouth is good for is serving as a “cock holster” for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
In Trump’s estimation, Colbert’s “show was dying” until the late-night host began taking aim at Trump.
“You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy,” Trump told Time. “And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him. The guy was dying. By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better. But his show was dying. I’ve done his show … But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high –highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.”
Colbert came under fire for the joke, which he told during a “Late Show” episode last week. Some of the host’s detractors accused Colbert of homophobia, with Vox senior reporter German Lopez writing, “In a setting in which Colbert is deliberately trying to find a way to insult Trump, it’s telling that he resorts to suggesting that Trump is engaging in sexual acts with another man. The suggestion is that the worst thing that could happen for these men is if they engaged in homosexual acts together, as if that devalues them as men or emasculates them.”
In a subsequent episode of “Late Show,” Colbert stopped short of an apology, saying he would tell the joke again but would “change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be.”