Accepting his award for Outstanding Talk Series, The Late Show host Stephen Colbert — an outspoken critic of President Trump — made reference to Paramount’s controversial decision earlier this year to cancel the long-running CBS program for reasons that many construed as political.
“I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to be part of the late-night tradition,” Colbert said, “which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show.”
US comedian writer Stephen Colbert accepts the Outstanding Talk Series award for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” onstage during the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
Colbert then told a story that obliquely — but unmistakably — touched on Trump.
“Ten years ago, in September of 2015, Spike Jonze stopped by my office and said, ‘Hey, what do you want this show to be about?’” Colbert recalled. “And I said, ‘Ah, spike, I don’t know how you’d do it, but I’d kind of like to do a late-night comedy show that was about love.”
Colbert paused before continuing. “I don’t know if I ever figured that out, but at a certain point — and you can guess what that point was — I realized that we were, in some ways, doing a late-night comedy show about loss.”
“And that’s related to love,” Colbert went on, “because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it.”
“Ten years later, in September of 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately,” he concluded. “God bless America. Stay strong, be brave — and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”
The audience responded with a standing ovation.
