Stephen Colbert spent ten years bashing Trump and drove his show straight into the ground.
Obama showed up for the funeral and used the eulogy to take shots at Trump.
John Kennedy watched the whole thing and had a few words for both of them.
Obama Used the Canceled Late Show to Promote His Presidential Library and Attack Trump
Barack Obama launched ticket sales for his new Presidential Center the same day he sat down with Colbert.
The Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side opens to the public June 19.
Obama filmed the entire interview there – at the Center, before tickets went on sale – then used Colbert's platform to take aim at Donald Trump without ever saying his name.
He picked the right room for it.
Colbert's audience gives Obama a standing ovation before he opens his mouth.
The late night host has two weeks left on air and was eager to give Obama his typical softball interview from the legacy media.
Colbert asked Obama what powers the president "shouldn't have."
Obama was ready.
"The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted," Obama said. "The attorney general is the people's lawyer. It's not the president's consigliere."
He kept going. "We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system. You can't have a situation in which whoever's in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends."
Then the pardon shot. "Maybe don't pardon people who've given you a bunch of campaign contributions. Or [go] investing in the businesses."
Trump's name never came up once.
It didn't need to.
Obama got a friendly audience, a national platform timed to his library's ticket launch, and a string of attacks on Trump with nobody in the room to push back.
It felt less like an interview about Obama's library and more like a therapy session for a former president who can't stop whining about his successor.
At one point Colbert floated the idea of running for president himself after the show ends.
Obama did not say no.
"The bar has changed," Obama said, laughing to himself.
He then told Colbert he thought the host "could perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen."
Colbert asked if that was an endorsement.
"It was not," Obama said.
Senator John Kennedy Mocks Obama and Colbert on Fox News
John Kennedy told Fox News host Will Cain that Obama was "pandering" to Colbert and his audience of seven with the whole performance.
Then he got to the part people are going to be quoting all week.
"He and President Obama are obviously best buds," Kennedy said. "Maybe they ought to get a motel room or something. They were just fawning all over each other."
That was just the opener.
Kennedy then turned his attention to Colbert and did not leave much standing.
"I've always thought that he was shallow as a puddle," Kennedy said. "Now, he doesn't believe that. He thinks he's one of the smartest people on the planet. Don't take my word for it, ask him. His personal vanity has always been unshakeable."
Then Kennedy finished it.
"His problem is not his vanity or his intelligence. It's his numbers. He was losing CBS $40 million a year because nobody was watching, so CBS told him to sit his ass down, and they said, you're fired."
That is the part Obama skipped during his lecture about powerful people silencing critics.
Now Obama is using The Late Show's final days to promote his library and take shots at a sitting president.
Kennedy saw the whole performance for what it was: two men who spent years telling America they were the adults in the room, fawning over each other in a room where nobody was allowed to disagree.
He already gave them the verdict.
Shallow as a puddle.
Sources:
- David Gilmour, "GOP Senator Launches Tirade Over Obama-Stephen Colbert Sit-Down: 'Get a Motel Room'," Mediaite, May 7, 2026.
- David Gilmour, "Obama Swipes at Trump in Blunt Warning About Threat to US Democracy," Mediaite, May 6, 2026.
- Molly Parks, "Kennedy suggests Obama and Colbert 'get a motel room' after cozy interview," Washington Examiner, May 7, 2026.
- "Obama Presidential Center Opens June 19, 2026," Obama Foundation, obama.org, 2026.
- Anne Freehling, "CBS Cancels The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," Fortune, July 18, 2025.