Stephen Colbert May Have Never Had More Eyes on ‘The Late Show’ Last Night. Unfortunately, His Lead Guest Was Adam Schiff
by Tara Ariano · Cracked.comHe tries, but he’s no Owen Wilson
July 18, 2025
In light of the simultaneously shocking yet expected news that CBS had cancelled The Late Show, it seems likely that some viewers who hadn’t watched the show in a while might tune in to see the beginning of the end that was Thursday night’s episode.
I certainly did, and was rewarded with Colbert’s elegant announcement about the show’s fate, followed by a monologue full of solid jokes about a reliable target: Donald Trump. The amateurish job someone made of the president’s hand makeup; the ongoing rage about a perceived cover-up of the investigation into alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein; Trump’s casual slander of a Fed chair he seems to have forgotten he appointed; his seemingly unfounded announcement that Coke is about to switch out high-fructose corn syrup for cane sugar: all came in for critiques by Colbert in the first several minutes of the show. The pleasure of a late-night show is when confident comedy segments roll into an entertaining interview. Or it would be, if Colbert’s lead guest hadn’t been Adam Schiff.
A freshman U.S. Senator from California (following decades as a Congressman), Schiff isn’t someone I’d call a powerhouse of charisma to begin with. And he wasn’t exactly set up for success when his introduction was preceded by a tease for a web-exclusive segment, “The Colbert Questionert,” featuring recent guest Joaquin Phoenix — someone who may not have always been pleasant to watch during his visits to The Late Show, but who was at least never boring.
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Schiff goes the other way, kicking off his first of three segments on the show by establishing that he’s very normal, and not the “shrieking demon” — Colbert’s words — that Trump has made him out to be. Schiff tells a story of visiting farmers in California in his capacity as a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and winning over a resistant farmer who commented, “I don’t know why the president calls you ‘Watermelon Head.’” I guess that’s at least a Trump insult CBS can air, unlike “little Adam Schitt.”
Schiff is respectful of the California voters in red districts who supported Trump in the last election, admitting of Democrats, “We just haven’t competed there.” It’s even-tempered and undoubtedly true. It’s just not newsworthy. Or news at all, really.
In the next segment, Colbert brings up the rallies that Senator Bernie Sanders has been holding with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which have been wildly popular even in deep red states like Montana; Colbert also cites the electricity around New York City mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. Noting that all three identify as Democratic Socialists who are trying to carry forth the progressive policies of people like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, Colbert asks why Schiff thinks this message has been so appealing. Schiff says that they’re all authentic challengers of the economic status quo, which Schiff admits isn’t working for a huge swath of the population. Again: undoubtedly true. Would have been a cool moment for Schiff to say he’s also joining the Democratic Socialists of America, but he doesn’t.
What Schiff does say is this: “I think the commonality, frankly, between the success Mamdani had in New York and the fact that Trump won in 2024 is that both of them represent an attack on the status quo.” Schiff adds that Trump’s way of attacking the status quo has been to turn the country into a dystopian hellhole — I guess that’s bad? — but says voters are getting so desperate to afford rent or their children’s needs “that they’re ready to embrace anyone who is a representative of dramatic change.”
So yeah, he links a current candidate from his own party to a president setting records with his unpopularity. This is the kind of message discipline that’s going to keep centrist Democrats losing elections.
In the last segment, Colbert asks Schiff about what has made this Trump administration different from the last one. After a lot of dispiriting talk about death threats that have been made against politicians across the spectrum, Schiff states that the only way to push back on Trump’s dystopian hellhole agenda is to say “piss off.” Schiff finds the camera currently framing him (second time’s a charm), stares it down, and addresses Trump directly: “Donald, piss off.”
The crowd goes wild. “Oh, oh!” Schiff adds, “But Donald, before you piss off, will you release the Epstein files?”
If Trump is one of the viewers who tuned in to Thursday’s episode out of curiosity, just like I did, he probably didn’t see anything that would revise his view of Schiff’s head. If Mamdani did, I hope he got someone on his team to shoot Schiff a quick text saying they’re all set on his help with the campaign.
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