CBS’s Stephen Colbert had an actually funny joke on Monday. There were only two problems. One was that he told it not on The Late Show, but during an interview with GQ’s Zach Baron as the magazine put him on the cover of its “men of the year” issue. A second problem was that it was completely unintentional, as he told Baron that “I think I’m more conservative than people think.”
During a discussion on the political aspects of his show, Colbert claimed, “I share that— those feelings with the audience, and they laugh or they don’t laugh, and that there’s a sense of community there, and you know the demographics of these shows are interesting too. It’s about a third, a third, a third. It’s about a third Republicans, a third Democrats, a third independents. You’d think, you know, old, you know, people perceive me as this sort of lefty figure. I think I’m more conservative than people think. I just happen to be talking about a government in extremis.”
Fact-check: 38 percent of Democrats confess to watching late night “very or somewhat often.” By contrast, 21 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of independents claim likewise.
Colbert got worse from there, “And so what I’m giving you is my reaction video to the day. And, and my reaction video is like, you know, is like the scream in a way, but with, with jokes and so that makes me—perceives me as more left necessarily than I am because I’m not sure of what other reaction would be an honest one. It’s hard to have a balanced reaction to the idea of troops on the street of a city that actually is not undergoing an invasion. Is any other reaction honest other than to?”
It would be one thing if Colbert simply didn’t like Trump or him sending the National Guard to various cities, but every time he talks policy, whether it’s abortion, LGBTQ stuff, the government shutdown, foreign policy, or whatever else you can think of, he is always taking the liberal position. Since NewsBusters started keeping track in September 2022 through June 2025, Colbert has had on 176 liberal guests and only one Republican, and that was Liz Cheney.
Later in the interview, Colbert was discussing his relationship with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and invoked his favorite books, “You know, there’s a great moment in The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf says, ‘Our—one of our great hopes here is that it has not entered into Sauron’s darkest dreams that we would ever want to destroy The Ring.’ And so I always felt that Jon was Frodo and I was Sam. And all I wanted to do was help him, like, we wanted to throw The Ring in the fire. Now what is the ring? I guess it’s power for the sake of power, as opposed to power for the sake of service, you know.”
Speaking of Stewart, Comedy Central renewed his contract for another year on Monday, which is odd because liberals spent the last several months citing Colbert’s cancellation as proof that Paramount was bending the knee to the authoritarian Trump and that Stewart was next.
Meanwhile, Colbert was more than happy to use The Ring when Democrats possessed it, but Tolkien metaphors aside, Colbert again tried to suggest that he is only talking about politics because the bad man in the White House is making him:
We tried to avoid politics actually at first because we’d done 10 years of it. I really wanted to find a way to lay down that sword and shield down by the riverside because it does me no good… It wasn’t until the political campaign of 2016 really started cooking that I realized, again, that you cannot do these shows unless you’re talking about something you really care about, that’s in the daily conversation, and then it wasn’t so much, oh, I cared about what at the time seemed like a dangerous thing to clothe someone like Donald Trump. To clothe him in the power and dignity of the office. Because then people only see the clothing of the dignity and the power of that office, then it provides dignity and status to everything the person does.
Every time Colbert does one of these interviews, he ends up sounding perfectly reasonable. The only problem is that such sentiments are not in line with what actually happens on The Late Show.
Here is a transcript for the November 3 interview:
GQ Interview with Stephen Colbert
11/3/2025
STEPHEN COLBERT: I share that— those feelings with the audience, and they laugh or they don’t laugh, and that there’s a sense of community there, and you know the demographics of these shows are interesting too. It’s about a third, a third, a third. It’s about a third Republicans, a third Democrats, a third independents. You’d think, you know, old, you know, people perceive me as this sort of lefty figure. I think I’m more conservative than people think. I just happen to be talking about a government in extremis.
ZACH BARON: Yeah.
COLBERT: And so what I’m giving you is my reaction video to the day. And, and my reaction video is like, you know, is like the scream—
BARON: Yeah.
COLBERT: — in a way, but with, with jokes—
BARON: With jokes yeah.
COLBERT: —and so that makes me—perceives me as more left necessarily than I am because I’m not sure of what other reaction would be an honest one. It’s hard to have a balanced reaction to the idea of troops on the street of a city that actually is not undergoing an invasion. Is any other reaction honest other than to?
BARON: Horror. Yeah.
COLBERT: Yeah, and so, but jokes about the horror, not the horror, do you know what I mean?
BARON: Right. Right. Right.
COLBERT: I don’t like and so those two things together or those three things together is the beginning of a case of why these shows should exist.
…
COLBERT: You know, there’s a great moment in The Lord of the Rings when Gandalf says, “Our—one of our great hopes here is that it has not entered into Sauron’s darkest dreams that we would ever want to destroy The Ring.” And so I always felt that Jon was Frodo and I was Sam. And all I wanted to do was help him, like, we wanted to throw The Ring in the fire.
Now what is The Ring? I guess it’s power for the sake of power, as opposed to power for the sake of service, you know.
BARON: Do you feel like that came with you to The Tonight Show? Excuse me, The Late Show.
COLBERT: That’s all right. You can call it The Tonight Show
[crosstalk]
BARON: Yeah, the Johnny Carson Show.
COLBERT: The Johnny Carson Show. Purposefully not at first, actually. We tried to avoid politics actually at first because we’d done 10 years of it. I really wanted to find a way to lay down that sword and shield down by the riverside because it does me no good. I’m not a warrior. I’m a comedian. You don’t want to be the guy in the front of the parade with a banner. And it wasn’t until the political campaign of 2016 really started cooking that I realized, again, that you cannot do these shows unless you’re talking about something you really care about, that’s in the daily conversation, and then it wasn’t so much, oh, I cared about what at the time seemed like a dangerous thing to clothe someone like Donald Trump. To clothe him in the power and dignity of the office. Because then people only see the clothing of the dignity and the power of that office, then it provides dignity and status to everything the person does.
