Stephen Colbert signed off Thursday night after eleven years. Less than 24 hours later, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video responding to the occasion, and the White House reposted it with a waving hand emoji and the caption “Bye-bye.”
That was apparently the administration’s version of a farewell card.
The clip shows Stephen Colbert delivering his farewell monologue: “Welcome back to our final broadcast, ladies and gentlemen.” Trump then walks up behind him, grabs him by the shoulders and tosses him into a large green dumpster positioned on the stage. Trump closes the lid, YMCA starts playing, and the fist dance follows. The official White House Instagram and X accounts both reposted the clip.
Bye-bye 👋 pic.twitter.com/5dPeXDflyh
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 22, 2026
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And that was only the latest entry in a very busy anti-Colbert posting spree.
The dumpster video marked the third Colbert-related post from Trump in under 24 hours. The first arrived roughly an hour after Colbert signed off Thursday night. “Colbert is finally finished at CBS,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
A few hours later came round two.
Trump followed up by predicting Colbert’s finale was “the Beginning of the End” for late-night hosts he described as “untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated.” Then came the dumpster video.
The situation around CBS has also kept people talking.
CBS parent company Paramount Global has been finalizing a merger with Skydance Media, a deal requiring approval from the Trump administration. Colbert had spent months criticizing both Trump and Paramount on air.
Things became even more tense after Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement with Trump, who sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The cancellation announcement arrived shortly after Colbert discussed the settlement on air. CBS insisted it was a financial decision.
Trump pushed back on claims he played a role, writing on Truth Social last July: “Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, Late Night. That is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT.”
For his part, Colbert has handled the situation far more calmly than the social media war surrounding it.
In a recent People interview, Colbert said: “The ending of the show aside, which people can speculate about all they want, and I can’t argue with their speculations, but we’re clowns. How much does it diminish the office of the presidency to even notice what we say?” He added: “He needs to know how to pick his battles, metaphorically and literally.”
Featured image via X screengrab
