Stephen Colbert showed little remorse in response to backlash over his controversial jokes about President Trump on Wednesday’s episode of “The Late Show,” but says he would re-word his monologue if he were to get another crack at it.
Colbert mocked Trump on Wednesday over abruptly ending a recent interview with CBS’s John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” when he was pressed on his unverified claims that President Obama wiretapped his office. After calling the episode “Disgrace the Nation,” Colbert went on to say that Trump’s “mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.”
Critics have said the joke was indecent and perhaps even homophobic, resulting in a trending social media boycott: #FireColbert.
On Thursday, according to an early transcript released by CBS, Colbert acknowledged the backlash by starting his monologue saying, “Welcome to ‘The Late Show.’ I’m your host, Stephen Colbert. Still? I am still the host? I’m still the host!!”
He then addressed his “choice insults” for Trump, which he said he did not regret.
“Now, if you saw my monologue Monday, you know that I was a little upset at Donald Trump for insulting a friend of mine,” he said, USA Today reported. “So at the end of that monologue, I had a few choice insults for the president in return. I don’t regret that. He, I believe, can take care of himself. I have jokes; he has the launch codes. So, it’s a fair fight.”
Colbert went on to say he would do it again, though he would “change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be.”
As we reported earlier, here's @StephenAtHome's response on @colbertlateshow to the #FireColbert backlash. https://t.co/S65SB3HBki pic.twitter.com/EmdnOiZCwB— Frank Pallotta (@frankpallotta) May 4, 2017
“I’m not going to repeat the phrase,” Colbert said, “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. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But, that.”
The transcript says Colbert and guest Jim Parsons of “The Big Bang Theory” will discuss the “controversy,” but didn’t go into further detail.
