Colbert tells Kimmel he doesn’t miss late night, compares news to ‘a cup of poison every day’

Comedian Stephen Colbert on Tuesday told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that he does not miss hosting CBS’s “The Late Show” and compared talking about the news to taking “a cup of poison every day.”

A bearded Colbert, resembling his late-night predecessor David Letterman after he departed “The Late Show” in 2015, appeared as a guest on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The eponymous host told Colbert he looked happier and healthier, adding that he seemed “like a different person.”

“Like I don’t drink a cup of poison every day?” Colbert replied. “Because part of the job is of –– the old gig, as I remember it, was to be lowered like carbon rods into a radioactive pool every day and then to be pulled out and put in front of a camera and to irradiate it back at the audience at a non-lethal rad level.”

Kimmel quipped that was “exactly the job description.” He then referred to a picture they took at the Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday with fellow late-night hosts Jon Stewart and John Oliver, adding that the photographer joked they were all at “the endangered table.”

“And if you can see, I’m smiling, but I literally said this under my breath, ‘That joke’s not as funny as you think,'” Colbert said, prompting laughs from Kimmel’s audience.

Separately, Colbert told CNN’s Elizabeth Wagmeister and Variety’s Ramin Setoodeh after the Emmy Awards that free speech was “alive and well,” but that late-night remains an important part of television despite criticism, Variety reported .

“Because if you can’t say something because you go to jail, that is a violation of free speech,” Colbert said. “I think that late night is just as funny and just as vital as it ever has been, and I love watching Jimmy [Kimmel] and Jimmy [Fallon] and John [Stewart] and Jon [Oliver] and Seth [Meyers] and everybody else.”

“And I think I hope it goes on for a long time because you get to work with people like this, and that’s the greatest gift,” he added.

Colbert stepped down from his role earlier this year after CBS’s parent company, Paramount, announced the show’s cancellation in 2025. He read the day’s headlines as part of his opening monologue but cracked light-hearted jokes that avoided partisan politics or references to President Trump, one of Colbert’s most frequent targets.

Paramount Skydance is owned by Larry and David Ellison, a father-son duo allied with the president.

Trump and other conservatives frequently attack the late-night hosts over their criticisms and jokes. The president at times has called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate Kimmel for allegedly violating “equal time” restrictions for political candidates, including a recently pulled interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D).

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, an appointee of former President Biden, last week said that the decision not to broadcast the interview after Trump’s latest threat was one of the administration’s attempts to stifle free speech.