Colbert to air live ‘Late Show’ after first two Democratic debates

CBS on Wednesday announced that Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” will have live airings after the first two Democratic primary debates on June 26 and June 27.

Colbert’s show last went live after President Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 5. 

The debates in late June will be shown by NBC News in conjunction with MSNBC and Telemundo, which is owned by NBC Universal. A guest list for “The Late Show” was not announced and will be shared on a date closer to the events.

{mosads}The Democratic field has grown to 21 candidates, which has prompted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to divide up the debates into two parts.

In 2016, the networks who hosted the Republican primary debates were faced with a similar situation when 17 candidates pursued the party nomination. Those debates were held on the same night, with the lesser of the two debates in terms of where those candidates were polling mocked as “the kiddie table.”

The DNC announced earlier this year that a random selection process will be used to decide which candidates appear which night regardless of where that candidate sits in the polls. In order to qualify to be on stage, however, a candidate must have at least 1 percent support in three selected polls or show documentation of at least 65,000 donors total from a minimum of 20 states.

In another example of the late night shows altering their usual format to react to big political events, NBC’s Seth Meyers recently expanded his program to 90 minutes to review the release of the Mueller report.