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Neither Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert seem to be backing down from fighting Trump for the heart of late night in a historic crossover
It was the first time two late night hosts had appeared on each other's show at the same time and boy did these two have a lot to talk about.
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We don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it is something of a fraught time to be a late night talk show host. Stephen Colbert’s run on The Late Show is set to end in May 2026, and Jimmy Kimmel Live was pulled off the air briefly in September 2025, following a monologue commenting on the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Both hosts have been outspoken in their criticism of President Trump, but during a crossover episode of The Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live, the two late night hosts showed no signs of playing nice with the administration.
It was already a historic night for network television as, thanks to the magic of pre-recorded television, Jimmy Kimmel was interviewing Stephen Colbert on ABC while Stephen Colbert was interviewing Jimmy Kimmel on CBS. The two shared stories of how they learned that their respective shows were cancelled. Near the end of The Late Show portion of the event, Stephen Colbert asked Jimmy Kimmel if he “ever thought the President of the United States would be celebrating your unemployment?”
“I mean, that son of a bitch, you know?” Jimmy Kimmel replied (mostly) jokingly. “It's really unbelievable. I never imagined that we would ever have a president like this, and I hope that we never have another president like this again. I never even imagined there would ever be a situation in which the president of our country was celebrating hundreds of Americans losing their jobs. Somebody who took pleasure in that. That, to me, is the absolute opposite of what a leader of this country is supposed to be.”
“Hear hear,” Stephen Colbert chimed in.
There was plenty of criticism of Donald Trump mixed into both shows, which isn’t anything new for either host, but to do it together on a shared platform felt like an intentional statement that there is still a place in America for late night hosts who speak truth to power and that both Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert weren’t backing down from that duty.
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