Stephen Colbert, Politics, and Religion

Stephen Colbert built a TV audience with skills he picked up in writing, ad lib, standup, dance, mimicry, impersonation, singing, acting and even stunt fighting. He is well-schooled in acting, popular culture, various genres of literature, pop culture, film-making and movie history. 

His friendship with co-producer Jon Stewart was always touching and fun, and the segments with his wife Evie were heartfelt and enjoyable. Sometimes, there were moments of brilliant banter, as with Brian Cranston (4-8-26) or when, in some pleasant early segments, Colbert lay on the grass looking at the stars with a celebrity friend and shot the breeze.

The direction of the show began to change radically before the 2016 election, when Colbert turned most of his attention to Donald Trump. Suddenly, the audience seemed self-selected, not needing any prompting to jeer and boo and to disparage the political preferences of half the country. 

It was then that the program took a nasty turn, with often cruel and vulgar jokes mocking President Trump, his marriage, the First Lady and his children. Colbert compared Trump’s sons to those of Saddam Hussein (5-19-26). He would refer to Trump as the “honey-glazed Himmler” and to cabinet members as “douche bags.” He would often show photographs to make nasty comments about people’s looks, comparing one prominent person to an “oven-baked red snapper where they leave the eyes in.” 

As the show became politically predictable and rote in ideology and format, Colbert would seek laughs with incessant jokes about male and female body parts, especially in his “Meanwhile” segment. 

Violence also entered the mix for easy slapstick humor. Colbert bug-sprayed an image of Trump. (11-2-2020) A Christmas cartoon had the audience applaud as two Republican congresspeople were ejected from a sleigh. A Bible was hurled at an image of Vice President Pence for “selling out his soul” (6-21-21). Cartoon segments showed one senator pulled out of his seat for opining that America was not “systemically racist.”

Also as a distraction from the repetitive and narrowly-aimed sarcasm, the show increasingly encouraged f-bombs, breaking TV mores, especially after the 2016 election, and then featured regular promotion of alcohol consumption and occasional nods to pot use. It advanced vulgar language and discourse.

There were good and legitimate criticisms of the Trump Administration, both in the monologues and in some of the opening musical parodies. (Clever though biting was a take on the song “Oklahoma” after Trump’s controversial Tulsa rally.) But the show’s one-sided slant soon drove away the very demographic that Colbert had hoped to persuade. He might have been effective at molding public opinion had he not provoked widespread offense at even his legitimate points.

That loss of audience was all the more unfortunate given worth-while, inspiring and memorable words of interviewees, regardless of their politics. Colbert’s interviews with actors, filmmakers and authors on their craft (minus politics) were mostly excellent. There were valuable recollections by civil rights leader Ruby Bridges; and NPR interviewer Terry Gross spoke about how grateful she was to have interesting work during Covid whereas before she had felt that time-consuming preparations caused her to miss out on things. (4-26-21)

One couldn’t help being moved by conversations Colbert had with President Joseph Biden about faith and grief, and with Anderson Cooper about mourning. Colbert did have moments of insight: “Often I think that the problem today is that no one asks the question, ‘What won’t you?’….Is there something you could not bring yourself to do or else you wouldn’t be yourself anymore? I see so many people disappearing into acquiescence and that’s such a strange thing to see out of people who otherwise had good ideas.” (7-21-25) But would he have respected his own advice followed by those who differ with his views?

Colbert’s interview style stimulated some noteworthy observations. Trevor Noah offered good perspectives on the theme of the American National Anthem signaling “Don’t mess with us,” and on how European voters criticize those they put into office while Americans demonize the other political party and make every effort to find no fault in their own. (1-22-24) Justice Sonya Sotomayor, a natural and gifted educator, offered clear explanation of emergency dockets, and pointed out that the role of the Supreme Court is to resolve reasonable differences among judges. (9-9-25), advising the public to read Supreme Court opinions. Yet when the Supreme Court shot down Trump’s tariffs, Colbert referred to dissenters as the “douche-bag line” instead of celebrating checks and balances. (2-23-26)

THEOLOGY

From the start, Colbert let it be known that he is a practicing, devout Catholic, clearly in that Church’s liberal camp. It was, in fact, unique to have a late night TV host professing a particular faith and even suggesting that he is representing it, though the nasty and vulgar stuff was hardly compatible with Catechism teachings.

During a memorable early interview with Bill Maher, Colbert demonstrated outreach savvy in inviting the avowed atheist, who was raised Catholic, to return to the church. He also offered recurring routines that parodied the confession booth and that featured a gruff anthropomorphic God bellowing from famous Michelangelo images in the Sistine Chapel. These latter, ofttimes tasteless, segments quickly grew tiresome.

When asked in a final episode what happens when we die, Colbert posited “the dispersion of the self into some other greater being.”  (5-20-26)  While it’s not clear how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity fits into this concept of Heaven, Colbert did affirm an earthly, political trinity—“Bernie Sanders, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani” who “name reality.” (1-26-26). He also made room for some secular New Age doctrine, comparing Gayle King’s “vision boarding” to the Catholic icons. (1-11-21)

Colbert inserted himself into a spiritual hierarchy of sorts. After President Trump taunted, “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next [to be cancelled],” Colbert insisted: “There’s only room for me on the cross.” (7-21-25) The salvation he offered was a one-sided talking points approach to “saving our democracy.”

PANDERING PREACHER AND HOST

Clearly, Colbert regarded preaching his politics as a calling. During the Covid shutdown, his monologues were continuous single-talking-head political sermonic rantings.

He operated in a hermetically-sealed comfort zone, never challenged by other points of view, and backed by like-minded CBS news celebs Nora O’Donnell and John Dickerson. The network spared no expense in providing a smug atmosphere for the host and his band-leaders and for politicians and celebrity guests of similar outlook.

The politician guests mouthed the expected Democrat talking points with varying degrees of intelligence, grace, humor, and likability so that Colbert and his like-minded audience could applaud. Not one dared offer a differing or original thought.

Colbert pandered to the progressive Democrats even when he joked about Democrats, but only about those who had lost favor, as when he mocked Joe Biden’s struggle with words, obviously hoping to avoid being seen as cruel by adding that Biden’s struggle with the Republicans was more grueling. (6-14-21)

Colbert literally confessed to pandering after post-Covid resumption of live audiences: “I have not been on this stage in front of a live audience for 460 days. I don’t know if I even remember how to pander to the most beautiful crowd in the world.” (6-14-21)

The show was best when Colbert was (rarely) challenged, even about little things like whether a hot dog is a sandwich. (7-25-25) He avoided giving credit to President Trump and to Republicans unless cornered. He was forced to acknowledge Trump (without audience applause) for arranging a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza after guest Tom Vietor did. (1-20-25) Years before, Joe Biden had graciously given Trump credit on the show for advancing the Covid vaccine. (12-17-20). 

Colbert did not handle non-pandering well, unless the guest gave him an out. Gifted humorist Maria Bamford felt compelled to note that her home was “saved by our Trump-supporting neighbors,” but immediately added: “very confusing ethically.” (3-3-26) 

No such out emerged when Jon Stewart insisted that Covid emerged from a lab in Wuhan and not from bats, bucking the leftist politically-correct narrative. Taken aback by this breach in permitted left-speak, Colbert pushed back that maybe the lab was in Wuhan because there are a lot of bats there. (6-14-21)  

Stewart’s comments on that episode brilliantly modeled comedic composition, courage and wit in taking on group speak. But on his own Daily Show, he tried to reinvent the Abraham Accords while failing to give Trump credit for them (2-26-24). Might Stewart’s vision have gained traction had he built on a groundbreaking, effective Republican policy?

Colbert, for his part, was rolling toward Israel-bashing: “After decades of presidents resisting Israel’s entreaties to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump took an enormous risk, putting our service members in harm’s way, [and] bombed Iran….” (6-24-25)  This was after Israel critic Brad Lander had gushed about Mamdami’s good looks and leftist policies in the show’s obvious bid to pander to specific demographics and to influence the New York mayoral election. (6-23-25)

Ta-Nehisi Coates was invited to decry “segregation” of Palestinians and “the group of people who are doing it,” and to accuse “descendants of Holocaust victims” of committing “one of the greatest crimes in human history.” Colbert fleetingly brought up the brutal Hamas onslaught, enabling Coates to defend his one-sided impressions as his response to alleged media (and Jewish?) obstruction of the Palestinian narrative (despite overwhelming media prejudice against Israel during coverage of the war in Gaza and in general). 

JUDAISM

Colbert enjoyed politicizing Jewish holidays and practices in his monologues. Was he pandering to Jewish viewers in his target audience who might give him a pass on further criticism of Israel?

When Trump lost the 2020 election and the lawsuits over recounts, Colbert compared Trump’s mounting losses to the Chanukah oil that kept lasting: “I’m pounding down fried potatoes with apple sauce.”  Also in 2020 Colbert compared extra doses in Covid vaccine vials to the same Chanukah miracle: “Let’s celebrate by eating fried potatoes, which I believe Americans do every day of the year anyway.” (12-17-20) After Trump’s national address coinciding with the first night of Passover 2026, Colbert cried: “Whether you’re Jewish or not, I recommend having…four glasses of wine. I put lamb’s blood around my TV so the speech would pass me by.” (4-1-26)

An opening parody featured an ad for Mar-A-Lago with signs pointing in two directions: “the best ball room whether you are launching Benjamin into manhood [“Benny’s Bar Mitzvah”] or launching missiles into the Middle East [“Regime Change”].” (3-2-26) In a final monologue Colbert lauded Senator Don Bacon’s standing up for Jewish people against anti-Semitism even though “bacon is not even kosher.”  (3-18-26) 

Whatever his motives for such joking allusions to Jews and Judaism, Colbert was, all the while, especially in the last months of the show, angling toward harder stances against the Jewish State and its military engagement with the vicious Iranian regime and its brutal proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.  Referring to Trump’s hope that Gaza would become the Riviera of the Middle East, Colbert cracked, “the carnival cruise of war crimes.” (2-5-25) And he lost no time in blaming the Iran war on a “manipulative power point by Netanyahu.” (4-8-26)

JOKES ABOUT CATHOLICISM

If the Jewish jokes were pandering-related, the Catholic jokes were intended for comic relief and could be outright disrespectful. Sometimes they were self-deprecating: “The thing I gave up for Lent was looking at close-up shots of whale genitals.” (3-31-26) But most of the time they were off-color for off-color’s sake—and for easy laughs between unfunny segments.

Even efforts to laud papal leniency degenerated into a segment on “Sex and the Vatican City” in which Colbert referred to Pope Francis as “my freaking Frankie” when attributing to the pontiff the view that “extra-marital sex sins aren’t that serious” and that “sins of the flesh were certainly sins but not as great as sins such as pride”: “So if you are proud of yourself for not having an affair God would rather that you just bang anything that moves.” (12-10-21) Colbert even offered a tasteless bit about the pope approving a semi-nude instagram photo. (11-17-20)

He joked about bishops “holy ghosting” President Biden by denying him communion for advocating for legal abortion, suggesting that real punishment would be moving Biden to another parish without telling him why (6-21-21)  But why joke about the abortion issue at all after saying that it is not a concern of most Americans? (5-4-22)

He joked that the iconic smoke of the Sistine Chapel chimney is from weed-smoking. (4-20-26). Why use the church to advance the “pot culture” often advocated by other late night shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live?

When Speaker Mike Johnson criticized Pope Leo for not recognizing the Iran conflict as a just war, Colbert compared him to a guy who questions the judgment of a bear to poop in a forest! (4-16-26) This was the second time that Colbert made such a comparison. When Johnson questioned the pope’s use of a New Testament verse, Colbert blurted out: “Don’t say you know more Bible than the pope. Do you claim to poop in the woods more than a bear?” (2-4-26) Who was the target of these jokes?

A couple of months before his last episode, Colbert observed when an Episcopal priest was caught shop-lifting, “Well, the Episcopalians have a scandal, too.” (3-11-26) How does that help the image of the Catholic Church, or raise social discourse, for that matter?

RAPTURE AND HEAVEN

In the defining sketch of the final episode, individuals began flying upward through a black-hole type tunnel that manifested backstage and then in the theater dome. Colbert cried to Neil deGrasse Tyson: “Thank God you’re here!” and Tyson responded: “No, thank science I’m here.” Colbert: “It’s [God is?] just something you say, man.”  

This segment came across as a strange mix of quantum physics and the Evangelical take on the Rapture or the ascent of the true believers in the End-Time. (I Thessalonians 4:16-17) It was presented not as Divine intervention, but as the “science” of an “interdimensional worm hole” resulting from the space-time continuum being “ruptured” by the cosmic contradiction of the “number one show in late night” being cancelled.

The “theology” of Late Night was along these lines: “In the beginning were the Talking Points, and the Talking Points were comfortable, and were progressively becoming more woke. And no one comes to God—“just something you say, man”—except through the Talking Points, especially when our show has the best ratings of decreasingly-watched late night legacy programs. And those who believe in the Talking Points will be pulled heavenward, through the Ed Sullivan Theater Dome, to commune with pop culture icons who share the same political beliefs and causes.”

Colbert reflected that “one of the problems with comedy is that “somebody’s usually the butt of the joke. Somebody loses in the joke.” Turning to guest Father James Martin, he asked “Am I going to Hell, Jim?” The latter quipped: “We live in hope.” (2-3-26) But does comedy have to be ad hominem and ideological? One would have hoped that Fr. Martin would have offered guidelines on how a divided Church and a divided nation might seek common purpose and achieve common goals, and how comedy understood differently could help.