After an acrimonious, months-long, and very public back and forth, Colbert chose to go out on an (almost) Trump-free note.

Stephen Colbert omits any mention of Donald Trump on The Late Show finale

After an acrimonious, months-long, and very public back and forth, Colbert chose to go out on an (almost) Trump-free note.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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May 22, 2026 1:34 a.m. ET

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Stephen Colbert; Donald Trump. Credit:

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS; Anna Moneymaker/Getty

- The final episode of *The Late Show with Stephen Colbert *featured a surprising lack of zingers at Donald Trump and his administration's expense.

- Even when special guest Paul McCartney joked about being slathered with "bright orange" makeup, Colbert declined to name the obvious punchline.

- CBS cancelled *The Late Show *in July 2025 after repeated calls for retribution from Trump — one of Colbert's most frequent targets.

Stephen Colbert's last dance on *The* *Late Show** *stage was decidedly Trump-free.

The late night mainstay signed off from the long-running chat show on Thursday, after CBS served it a shocking cancellation last July. The move was widely decried as politically motivated, given CBS parent company Paramount Global's then-pending merger with Skydance Media (owned by Trump loyalist Larry Ellison), which needed the Trump FCC's blessing. And, oh yeah, President Donald Trump's explicit endorsement of the cancellation.

Colbert only doubled down on the jokes against his longtime adversary after the canning, resulting in a months-long feud played right out in public between the two. Expectations, therefore, were high for a Trump-bashing throw-down on final show on Thursday.

But the *Daily Show *veteran kept the president's name entirely out of his mouth.

Paul McCartney and Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show'.

The only explicit joke made at Trump's expense came during Coblert's final interview with rock legend Paul McCartney.

"What do you remember about February of '64?" Colbert asked McCartney, noting how The Beatles made their American TV debut debut some seven decades prior on the very same stage. "Well, we'd never been to America. We'd come here and people said this is was the biggest show, and to tell you the truth, we'd never heard of it," McCartney said of the *Ed Sullivan Show*, which went on to give *The Late Show *stage its name.

"We came here and you have to go a few floors down to get to makeup," McCartney continued, "we went down there and the girls put makeup on us, and it was like, bright orange."

With a mischievous grin, Colbert joked, "That's very popular in certain circles these days."

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And that was it. No jokes about the disastrous *Melania *documentary, or the president's $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters, or the gilded "Don Colossus" statue.

Colbert went out on his own terms.

Stephen Colbert during the finale of 'The Late Show'.

Scott Kowalchyk/cbs

The *Late Show *finale may have been Trump free, but it wasn't politics free.

Louis Cato and the Great Big Joy Machine, Colbert's house band, broke into a rendition of the classic Peanuts song "Linus and Lucy," as Colbert delivered a headline about how its creators sue anyone who plays it without proper licensing. "I hope this doesn't cost CBS any money," Colbert slyly stated.

Then, toward close, the episode descended into an extended metaphor about Colbert not getting swallowed up by the corporate corruption that shadowed the *Late Show *cancellation. His former fellow late-night hosts — Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon — banded together to give him a confidence boost at the last moment, and his former mentor, *The Daily Show *host Jon Stewart, sent him off with his head held high.

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