Late night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert were each guests on the other’s show in a rare crossover event on Tuesday, where the two frequent critics of President Donald Trump opened up about being taken off the air.
“Did you ever think the president of the United States would be celebrating your unemployment?” Colbert asked Kimmel during the “Late Show” portion of the evening.
“I mean that son of a bitch, you know, is really unbelievable,” Kimmel said.
“Mr. Son of a Bitch,” Colbert jokingly corrected.
“No, I never imagined that we’d ever have a president like this,” Kimmel said. “And I hope we don’t ever have another president like this again.”
Colbert got the news over the summer that his show had been canceled and would end in May 2026, while Kimmel was suspended in September after a threat from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr and attacks by President Donald Trump over comments he made about the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump celebrated both hosts being taken off the air in gloating posts on social media.
“I never even imagined there would ever be a situation in which the president of our country was celebrating hundreds of Americans losing their jobs,” Kimmel said. “Somebody who took pleasure in that. That, to me, is the absolute opposite of what a leader of this country is supposed to be.”
Kimmel was brought back days later amid intense public pressure, but he told Colbert he didn’t think that would be the case at all.
“I thought that’s it. It’s over. It is over,” he told Colbert. “I’m never coming back on the air. That’s really what I thought.”
He took Colbert through a minute-by-minute account of getting the news ― in a bathroom, no less ― and then having to tell his staff and his family:
On Kimmel’s show, Colbert explained how he got the news during a meeting with his manager after returning from vacation.
The meeting ran unusually long, causing Colbert’s wife, Evelyn McGee-Colbert, to crack a joke.
“I walk into the apartment and she goes, ‘What happened? You get canceled?’” he recounted.
Colbert also explained how he broke the news to his staff and his audience: