Stephen Colbert’s years-long ban on uttering former President Trump’s name on “The Late Show” is apparently over.
Since returning to the airwaves last week following the end of the Hollywood writers strike, Colbert has repeatedly said Trump’s name on his CBS late-night show.
“Say what you want about Donald Trump — and I have — but there are times when you have to put aside your feelings and just listen to whoever might have relative geopolitical experience,” Colbert said during his opening monologue earlier this week while mocking the 45th president’s remarks about the Hamas-Israel war.
Breaking into an impression of the former president, Colbert quipped, “You know who else said, ‘I love Donald Trump?’ Scar. Gotta love him. Some call him a king — a lion king. So in a way you could say I was endorsed by a king.”
Colbert — one of Trump’s fiercest late-night critics — had discussed the moniker boycott back in April 2021, saying on his show, “I haven’t said the last president’s name in five months. Why would I? I kiss my wife with this mouth.”
“After the whole Jan. 6 thing — no, even before that. It was after [the 2020 election] when he did that whole ‘I won’ thing, I planned not to say the guy’s name again,” Colbert, 59, said of Trump at the time.
But he lamented that “it’s really hard coming up with synonyms for this douche nozzle’s name,” making an appeal to his viewers to submit alternative name suggestions for Trump on social media with the hashtag #HeWhoShallBeNamed.
Since then, Colbert had regularly avoided saying “Trump,” referring to him as the “former president.”
Even images on the show were censored so as not to show Trump’s name. As recently as April, one of Colbert’s final shows before the Writers Guild of America strike began in May, asterisks over the name were seen in a graphic showing news coverage involving the ex-commander in chief.
But now the 2024 White House hopeful’s name is being uttered on “Late Show” air once again.
“Is this idea that a nonmember of Congress, such as Donald John Trump, could become Speaker, is that a reality in any way?” Colbert asked CNN journalist Anderson Cooper last week in an interview.
A “Late Show” spokesperson declined ITK’s request for comment on Colbert’s recent vocalization of the formerly unutterable.
Trump’s name was included in plenty of one-liners during Colbert’s first show back from the strike Oct. 2. During the opening monologue alone, Colbert — without mention of the self-imposed restriction — said Trump’s name seven times.