Behold our great and noble leader, Donald J. Trump, speaking truth to the powers that be over at CBS:
You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There’s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. 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.
O, how rich. On Monday, during a dinner to which he invited a few reporters from Time, Trump had no shortage of choice words for certain media figures, including Chris Cuomo (“a chained lunatic”) and Don Lemon (“perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting”). But as you can see from above, he saved his most scathing review for Stephen Colbert, who last week made the unfortunate choice to criticize Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin via a bad, homophobic joke.
Notice how he calls Colbert’s jokes “filthy,” as if he didn’t get caught bragging about sexually assaulting women. (A line that sullied the innocence of many children last fall.) Though, to be fair, the commander in chief’s got a point when it comes to ratings: The Late Show has indeed benefitted from the Trump bump. (So has pretty much every one else in news and media, viewer- and readership-wise.) Never mind that these “successes” stem from the U.S. government’s rapid decline under Trump’s watch.
So, yeah, this is where we are. This is our president, these are the times we live in. Soak it all in, and continue to remind yourselves that none of this should be considered normal.
Update, May 12: Watch Colbert’s reponse.
