Stephen Colbert turned President Donald Trump’s signature insult back on him during Tuesday’s monologue, savaging the historically low ratings of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast that Trump hosted in December, 2025.
The Late Show host had a smile plastered across his face as he highlighted the abysmal viewership numbers from the December 23, 2025, broadcast on CBS. Trump had preemptively bragged about the show before it even aired, calling the ceremony “the greatest evening in the history of the Kennedy Center—not even a contest” and predicting it would be “the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done.”
“I really wanted to talk about this week,” Colbert said. “Which of course is how this year’s Kennedy Center Honors drew an all-time low viewership on CBS with host Donald Trump.”
The audience erupted in applause as Colbert continued with his joke about nobody seeing the broadcast.
Then he deployed Trump’s own weapon against him, calling Trump no-talent and low-rated. The crowd erupted again, with chants filling the studio. Trump’s use of the phrase no-talent guy dates back to 2017, when he called Colbert exactly that. The president has since deployed the insult against other late-night hosts, including Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
The Kennedy Center Honors have been a staple of American cultural life, celebrating the nation’s most distinguished artists and performers. The annual event typically draws millions of viewers who tune in to watch the nation honor its cultural icons. This year’s 48th annual Kennedy Center Honors celebrated Sylvester Stallone, KISS, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford.
Colbert, feigning sympathy, suggested people should cut Trump some slack since it was his first year hosting. As a former Kennedy Center host himself, he noted it can take a while to build an audience. His ratings his first year were 9.25 million viewers, three times as many as Trump’s numbers, and he didn’t even name the building after himself. Colbert hosted the Kennedy Center Honors from 2014 to 2016.
The actual numbers tell a stark story. The December 23, 2025, broadcast averaged 3.01 million viewers, down from 4.1 million viewers the previous year—representing a 26% drop in viewership. Trump became the first sitting president to host the event, and his speech, which lasted 12 minutes, was edited down to just 2 minutes by CBS.
Despite the disappointing ratings, the Kennedy Center defended the broadcast as a successful night. The institution pointed to strong performance across key demographics and noted that the show generated 1.5 billion social media impressions in just one night, a dramatic increase from only 50 million impressions the previous year.
The December ceremony occurred against a backdrop of controversy surrounding the Kennedy Center.
Colbert’s sharp-tongued response to Trump comes as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert prepares to end its run in May, 2026. Trump declared that he loves that Colbert was fired.
CBS insisted that the cancellation was purely a financial decision, reflecting broader economic challenges facing late-night television. However, many observers noted the timing and context, given Colbert’s status as one of Trump’s most persistent critics in late-night television.
The feud between Trump and late-night hosts has been a defining feature of both his presidential terms. Trump has called Colbert a pathetic trainwreck with no talent and claimed he had nonexistent ratings. The president urged CBS to end the show immediately rather than waiting until May.
Trump has also repeatedly confused Colbert with Kimmel. At the Kennedy Center Honors, Trump claimed that Jimmy Kimmel was horrible as host of the event. In reality, Kimmel has never hosted the Kennedy Center Honors—it was Colbert who served as master of ceremonies for three consecutive years leading up to Trump’s first presidency.
The ongoing battle between Trump and Colbert represents a broader tension between political power and comedic criticism. Late-night comedy has traditionally served as a venue for satirizing those in power, but Trump’s combative approach to media criticism has created an unusually personal dynamic between the president and entertainers who mock him.
As Colbert’s final months on The Late Show approach, the host appears unbowed by either the cancellation or Trump’s attacks. His Tuesday monologue demonstrated his willingness to continue taking shots at the president, armed now with concrete evidence that Trump’s prediction of record-breaking ratings fell dramatically short of reality.