Stephen Colbert Responds To #FireColbert, Trump Backlash: ‘I Would Do It Again’
Comedian Stephen Colbert has reportedly filmed his amends to Oval Office leader Donald Trump for tonight’s airing of The Late Show on CBS, although he’s not exactly sorry for what he’s done.
In a transcript obtained by Vulture of Wednesday night’s telecast, the 52-year-old funny man is alleged to address the controversy surrounding comments he made regarding Trump and Russian president, Vladimir Putin, during his Monday evening broadcast that many — including certain Republican notables — found to be borderline homophobic.
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“If you saw my monologue Monday,” Colbert began, “[then] you know that I was a little upset at Donald Trump for insulting a friend of mine.”
That friend, according to CNN, was CBS Morning News host John Dickerson, who Trump reportedly cut off in the middle of a recent interview after he was sidelined by Dickerson’s line of questioning on certain wiretapping rumors.
“So at the end of that monologue, I had a few choice insults for the president in return,” Stephen continued expressing to his audience.
“I don’t regret that. He, I believe, can take care of himself. I have jokes [and] he has the launch codes, so it’s a fair fight.”
At that point, Stephen apparently admits that perhaps he had gone too far in uttering the contentious line (“The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c**k holster,” as TVLine reminds us), but refrains from fully apologizing.
“So while I would do it again,” Colbert commented, without ever bringing up the term, “I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be. I’m not going to repeat the phrase [here], but I just want to say for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love for another person, in their own way, is to me, an American hero.”
Even with his inherent irony, however, Stephen supposedly ended his diatribe with a valid but subtle nod toward free speech.
“I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that — [if] nothing else, [just] that.”
Incidentally, Colbert’s backtracking from his troublesome Trump statement may have been forced upon him by CBS higher-ups whom, as alluded to in an earlier Variety piece, were said to have been extremely shocked over Stephen’s statements, as were many of his political and journalistic peers.
Senior reporter German Lopez of Vox would go on to express his disappointment of Stephen in a scathing review of his very own.
“In a setting in which Colbert is deliberately trying to find a way to insult Trump,” Lopez wrote, “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.”
Even TMZ, a website notably dedicated to the scandalous side of celebrity life, went on record to question if Stephen’s Trump quip went a step too far.
#FireColbert Twitter campaign gains steam after Stephen Colbert's #homophobic… https://t.co/LiwmQsyfj9 by #Lrihendry via @c0nvey
— Ronald Lee Greene (@greeneronald386) May 4, 2017
“[Colbert’s] audience loved the joke,” the site shared, “but [it’s] hard to ignore [that’s] it’s a seriously homophobic punchline; the kind of thing that usually gets celebs in hot water.”
Incidentally, this is not the first time in Colbert’s television career that a farce-intended line went on to take a negative life of its own after being spoken by Stephen, as Vulture ultimately relays.
“Back in 2014 when he was hosting The Colbert Report on Comedy Central,” the site notes, “that show’s official Twitter account posted a message saying, ‘I am willing to show Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.'”
Apparently, the tweet was a satirical nod to Daniel Snider, owner of the Washington Redskins, who once promised to found a pro-Native Americans charity in hopes of, in part, making up for the problematic moniker of the sports’ team.
“Many perceived the tweet as a racist assault on Asians and Asian-Americans, leading to the creation of the hashtag #CancelColbert,” Vulture goes on to note, “[but] Colbert reveled in the controversy [and] even promoting it on future episodes of The Colbert Report.”
Reps for the White House have not commented on Stephen Colbert’s supposed Trump apology. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights on CBS. Check your local listings for showtimes.
[Featured Image by Astrid Stawiarz/Stringer/Getty Images & Pool/Getty Images]
