“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert sees a lot of his satirical old self in Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
“I’m not the first person to say this, but I completely agree that he’s my old character with 10 billion dollars,” Colbert told CBS’ John Dickerson, referring to his former parody right-wing commentator character on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”
Colbert, who left Comedy Central last year, said he can’t play his blustering old character anymore because Trump is “doing it better than I ever could.”
“He’s willing to drink his own Kool-Aid,” Colbert continued. “And manufacture and distribute it because he’s got all the cash. He’s this very interesting like Frankenstein of the idea that facts don’t matter and only money does. Because if money is speech, he’s got a $10 billion mouth and doesn’t have to spend any of it because everyone will point a camera at him.”
Like the other late night talk show hosts, Colbert has often skewered the controversial businessman and former reality television star on “The Late Show.” In a pre-Thanksgiving segment, Colbert mocked Trump’s claim that he has the “world’s greatest memory” but couldn’t remember where he saw the video of people cheering the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“I really didn’t think he’d be doing this well,” Colbert said. “Because I don’t really know anything about politics. I mean, spoiler, I just pretended for years to know something about it.”
Colbert ran a short satirical campaign for president in 2012, which was meant in part to draw attention to the power of money in super political action committee politics.
Colbert said he disagrees with “anything” that Trump says. But he praised one part of Trump’s campaign.
“There’s a populism to Trump that I find very appealing,” he said. “And it’s only this, is that the party elders would like him to go away but the people have decided that he is not going to.”
“There is something really hopeful about the fact that, well, 36 percent of the likely voters want him, so the people in the machine don’t get to say otherwise. That’s the one saving grace, I think, of his candidacy.”
Colbert also remarked that his interview with Vice President Joe Biden on the passing of his son Beau Biden was “in some ways one of the most sublime moments I’ve ever had on stage.”
“After he left I thought, ‘Oh, that nice man just gave me my show’ because I had to be myself in order to receive it. I had no other choice. And it was only my third show. And it was such an honor and I was completely moved by his willingness to share that with the audience,” Colbert said.
