Twas the rant before Christmas on Truth Social early Wednesday morning as President Donald Trump lashed out at his late-night TV enemies before abruptly shifting tone and wishing his followers a happy holiday.
The president’s social media output on Tuesday had been largely confined to political matters – and conspicuously did not mention the huge tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Department and Justice – until he overnight suddenly issued a scorching attack on Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’s The Late Show, which is coming to an end next year.
“Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success,” the president seethed.
“Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings. Stephen is running on hatred and fumes – A dead man walking! CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do!”
Not finished there, Trump continued: “Who has the worst Late Night host, CBS, ABC, or NBC??? They all have three things in common: High Salaries, No Talent, REALLY LOW RATINGS!”
Still angry, he complained in a third post about the negative coverage he and his administration routinely receives and threatened to “terminate” the broadcast licenses of the networks responsible.
“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!” he wrote.
Finally, having said his piece, the president bellowed in all-caps: “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!”
It was not immediately clear why he was so incensed by Colbert, whose most recent episode aired on December 18, but Trump has long complained about topical jokes being at his expense made by late-show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers in the opening monologues to their nightly shows.
Kimmel, in particular, is a long-standing hate figure to Trump, who gloried in his brief suspension in September over remarks he made about the politicization of the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah university campus.
The host has since returned to the airwaves and continued to make fun of the president and his administration, most recently deriding Trump for his televised broadcast last week to talk up his economic record.
Invoking 32nd president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” during the Great Depression, Kimmel said Trump had delivered “an impromptu ‘liar-side’ chat tonight in the middle of the season finales of Survivor and The Floor.”
He continued: “It’s weird to think that, had a couple of states just gone the other way, he’d be hosting one of those shows. Trump shouldn’t be pre-empting The Floor, he should be mopping it, OK?”
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