Stephen Colbert led a joke that had the audience in stitches during Tuesday night’s “The Late Show” when he temporarily forgot that his show had been canceled.
Gaga’s inspiration was her CBS colleague Gayle King, who earlier in the day was Donald Trump’s latest TV/media target in the area.
“Despite his busy schedule, pretending not to know Jeffrey Epstein while simultaneously smashing the roof, Donald Trump still finds time to get angry on TV,” Colbert said right at the end of his monologue.
“Today he posted ‘Gayle King’s career is over. She should have stood by her faith in Trump. She never had the courage to do it. No talent, no ratings, no power.'”
In it, Colbert predicted outrage and said, looking directly into the camera, “Hey, Mr. President, come back. You’re messing with my beloved CBS colleague and friend Gayle King, and if you want to get to Gayle, you have to go through my show first.”
During that “late show,” the audience gasped and laughed nervously when Colbert leaned over and pretended to talk to someone just offstage. “What is that? I’m sorry. Hold on. What? Oh, I forgot,” he joked.
You can watch the full monologue below:
Earlier in the monologue, Colbert addressed several other topics, starting with Trump’s impromptu appearance on the White House roof Tuesday morning, with Colbert declaring at one point, “Why do we have to pretend to be normal when an old man is wandering around on the roof yelling at us?”
Then he discussed the latest terrible (for the Trump administration) Gallup poll, the Texas redistricting fight, during which he poked fun at Texas Republicans for trying to “redraw the map so they don’t actually have to fight if they think they might lose next year.” Colbert also discussed the latest news from the Epstein scandal, a very, very angry recent Republican town hall meeting, and more. As we said, you can watch the entire video above.
