Late night host Stephen Colbert has a sharp theory about why he and his fellow comedians might get under President Donald Trump’s skin so much.
Looking back at his time hosting CBS’s “The Late Show” in an interview with The New York Times ahead of his final curtain call next month, he said, “Authoritarians don’t like anybody who doesn’t give them undue dignity.”
“Comedians are anti-authoritarian by nature,” he went on. “And authoritarians are never going to like anybody to laugh at them.”
“The number of newspeople who have said to me or Jon Stewart or any of the guys who do this, ‘God, I wish I could say what you say on air,’” the comic recalled. “And we can. I think that upsets them. I think it might be upsetting that we really do not live in their world of principalities and powers.”
Asked if the way late night hosts have turned into political targets made him regret mocking the president and his allies, Colbert explained, “I don’t have any problem with Trump being a Republican. I have a problem with Trump being a complete narcissist who is only working for his own interest and does not appear to care if the entire world burns.”
