Stephen Colbert's monologue this week tearing into President Donald Trump's declining poll numbers has elicited a biting response from the White House.
Colbert, the host of 'The Late Show', proudly proclaimed on Tuesday that Trump's job approval rating among Americans had fallen to just 33 percent, according to a recent University of Massachusetts Amherst poll.
In January 2025, when Trump was inaugurated for his second term, 47 percent of Americans approved of him, according to Gallup.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said: 'Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck with no talent and terrible ratings, which is exactly why CBS canceled his show and is booting him off the airwaves.'
Colbert dug into the UMass Amherst poll, which also found that since April of last year, Trump has hemorrhaged support among independents, Latinos, and men.
'On average, 47.2 percent of Americans strongly disapprove of him. But there are still 22.4 percent who strongly approve of him,' Colbert said to a chorus of boos.
This prompted Colbert to step toward the camera and jokingly ask, 'Who are you?' of the nearly quarter of poll respondents who said they support Trump.
'Late Night' host Stephen Colbert mocked Trump fans who still support him on his Tuesday night show. Colbert took great pleasure in rattling off President Donald's Trump's declining poll numbers.
The White House responded by calling Colbert 'a pathetic trainwreck with no talent and terrible ratings'.
He then assumed the identity of a hypothetical Trump supporter and mockingly said: 'I want gas to be expensive. I want the Kennedy Center blown up. And I know this is a pipe dream, but is there any way that maybe - maybe - we could get Denmark to hate us? Because I would just love it if the price of licorice went up too.'
Colbert's show is set to run its final episode on May 21, a decision CBS has said comes down to 'purely financial reasons'.
That hasn't stopped others from questioning whether the move was politically motivated, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff.
'If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,' Schiff posted on social media in July 2025.
Colbert criticized Paramount, the parent company of CBS, for settling a lawsuit with Trump.
Trump sued for $20 billion over what he claimed was a deceptively-edited interview 60 Minutes ran with former Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the 2024 election.
On July 2, 2025, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million, funds that will go to a future Trump Presidential Library.
About two weeks later, Colbert called the settlement a 'big fat bribe', a reference to the fact that the Trump administration was in the position to approve or deny Paramount Global's merger with Skydance Media. The merger was ultimately approved by the Federal Communications Commission.
Days after Colbert's comments torching his employer, CBS announced that his show would be cancelled.
Colbert has shied away from saying his show was cancelled because of his political speech, but he has acknowledged the widespread speculation.
'It is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation and the news division,' Colbert said of the Paramount settlement with Trump in an interview with GQ in November.
'So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual. If people have theories that associate me with that, it's a reasonable thing to think, because CBS or the corporation clearly did it once. But my side of the street is clean and I have no interest in picking up a broom or adding to refuse on the other side of the street. Not my problem.'
'So people can have their theories,' he added. 'I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore, but you'd have to show me why that's a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months, for me to engage in that speculation. I have had a great relationship with CBS.'