CBS to replace Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ with Byron Allen comedy
CBS has announced “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen” as a replacement for “The Late Show” starting May 22, following the departure of Stephen Colbert.
- Former President Barack Obama joked with Stephen Colbert about the talk show host running for president.
- He said the attorney general should be the people’s lawyer, not the president’s personal lawyer.
- Mr. Obama believes that norms that prevent the expansion of executive power may need to be codified into law.
- The former president expressed concern about the politicization of the Justice Department and the military.
Former President Barack Obama jokingly encouraged late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert to consider a new job he once held.
During the May 5 episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, the normally friendly interview turned a little more serious as Colbert talked about his possible plans.
“I’m looking for a new job in the near future,” Colbert said, alluding to his long-running CBS talk show, which airs its final episode on May 21. “And a lot of people are telling me I should run for president.”
In response, Obama laughed and told Colbert that he had the “look” to be president, adding: “You’ve got that hair.”
Colbert responded, “Just to be clear, I think that’s a stupid idea. How stupid do you think it is for people to say I should run for president?”
“The standards have changed,” the former president said. Although he did not mention President Donald Trump by name, the meaning was clear.
Colbert, who President Trump cheered on when The Late Show was canceled, quipped that the hurdles to becoming president are “sometimes underground.” Then the talk show host said, “You don’t have to be so depressed, do you?”
Obama laughed and added, “Let me tell you this: I think you can perform much better than some of the people we’ve seen. I have a lot of confidence in that.”
Mr. Colbert thanked Mr. Obama and asked if that was a formal endorsement. The 44th president declared, “That was not the case.”
In an emailed statement to USA TODAY on May 6, White House press secretary Davis Ingle called Obama “a classless idiot who clearly suffers from severe and debilitating Trump derangement syndrome that has rotted his brain.”
“He is an absolute disgrace to all the division he sowed in this country, and history will not judge him well,” Ingle said. “The only special interest guiding the Trump administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people. Only a pathetic train wreck like Stephen Colbert would waste his time interviewing one of the worst presidents in history on a failed show.”
President Obama expresses concerns about expanding executive power
In a nearly 30-minute prerecorded interview at the Obama Center, which opens next month, President Obama said the United States will have some work to do when it comes to expanding the powers of the executive branch after the current administration leaves office. Although he did not mention President Trump by name, he expressed concern that the White House was using the Justice Department as a political tool.
Mr. Obama, a former constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago, told Mr. Colbert, “There’s a lot we can overcome, including bad policies and bad elections.” “We cannot overcome the politicization of the judicial system and the formidable power of the state, and we cannot allow those in charge to use it to go after their political opponents or reward their friends.
President Obama said, “Although it is not provided for in the Constitution, it may be better not to tolerate those who have donated large sums of money to election campaigns.”
When Colbert asked Obama about the need to limit presidential power and what powers a president should not have, Obama said there were some guidelines that were “not law, but that we followed.”
“We need to do some fundamental work to get back to this basic norm, and perhaps we need to codify it now,” President Obama said. “The White House should not be able to direct the attorney general to prosecute anyone the president wants to prosecute.
“The common sense and the idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer,” Obama continued. “I am not the consigliere of the president.”
President Obama added that the Justice Department must “make independent judgments about specific cases and prosecutions.”
The former president also expressed concern about the potential politicization of the U.S. military, but did not mention the Iran war that began on February 28. Amid the ceasefire, the president said the war could end if Iran agrees to U.S. terms and allows commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
However, President Trump said in a May 6 post on Truth Social that if the Iranian government did not agree, U.S. bombing would resume “at a higher level and intensity.”
In the interview, President Obama touched on the role of the president in international conflicts, telling Colbert that it was a mistake to “politicize” the military.
“We had a set of norms in place to ensure that we were not trying to make the military loyal to us in violation of the Constitution and the American people,” Obama said. “We’ll have to find a mechanism to restore it.”
