The ongoing feud between Stephen Colbert and President Donald Trump isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, especially after The Late Show won an Emmy.
On Sunday, at the 2025 Emmy Awards, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert won best talk series for the first time, beating Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Daily Show.
During Colbert’s first show after the awards ceremony on Tuesday, he was more than thrilled to show off his golden statuette to his live audience, quipping, “We should have gotten canceled years ago.” The host was seemingly referring to CBS announcing in July that The Late Show would be ending its run in May 2026.
“This award belongs to the 200 hardworking people who make this show, first and foremost, the writers of this show,” he later said. “Every day, they take down everything I say during the show just so that there’s a script at the end of the night as a souvenir for everybody. It’s incredible. They do it every day.”
Colbert continued, “But they don’t do it alone. The stage crew, production staff, talent, editors, the band, control room, props, graphics, research, digital, accounting, legal, wardrobe, make-up, security, maintenance, assistants and interns. And of course, the audience department, who let in all of you gorgeous people every night. Because you, the audience, you people here, you people out there, you are the ones who ultimately make this show possible, so this belongs to you too, but I’m gonna keep it.”
He then joked that “if anyone so much as touches” his Emmy, he “will jab your eyes out with the wings right there.”
Colbert also expressed his appreciation to the Television Academy who voted for The Late Show, Emmys producers and his fellow nominees, Jon Stewart and Jimmy Kimmel.
The host concluded his comments about the show’s latest Emmys win during his opening monologue by taking a job at his longtime foe, “Speaking of Emmys, Donald Trump doesn’t have one.”
The Late Show‘s first Emmy win was a nice surprise for Colbert and the team, not only due to the show getting canceled but also because the president was quick to gloat about the news in July. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! [Fox News late night host] Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
While Trump doesn’t have an Emmy Award, he did receive two Emmy nominations for best reality-competition program for The Apprentice in 2004 and 2005.