CBS’s left-wing funnyman Stephen Colbert may be considering another run for president after he leaves Late Night in May.
Colbert made his comment heavily doused in snark at far-left Slate magazine’s Political Gabfest event on Dec. 18, where he was asked if he would run for president in 2028. “Yeah, I absolutely should not run for president,” Colbert replied to the question, then added, “I understand why you’d want me to.”
He then went on to say he would consider a run if he feels a call to “greater service to this nation,” as he continued his satirical reply.
“Because what I believe is America’s the last best hope of mankind,” he said in mock piety, “and if there’s anything I can do to forward the mission of our Founding Fathers whose love of freedom and belief in the rights of man abides in my heart like the very blood in my veins and the strength in my arms. Why, who am I to say that I should run? But if I hear the call obviously of the Lord.”
Despite his dash of humor, Colbert has flirted with running for president two previous times, though it was never sure if he was doing it for satire, or if he secretly hoped it would turn into a real campaign.
He first threw his hat in the ring for the Democrat primary in 2007 when he was still the host of the Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. At the time, he actually paid the $2,500 fee for ballot access in the South Carolina Democrat Primary, but the state party refused his bid and said that he was not a serious candidate.
The second time the left-wing TV host looked at running was in 2012 when he launched another effort to get on the South Carolina Democrat Primary ballot. Despite announcing his intention, though, he failed to meet the filing deadline and was again left off the ballot.
CBS has announced that Colbert will end his low-rated talk show sometime in May of 2026 after 10 years as host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The show will be cancelled and CBS says it will not replace it with another late-night talk show.
While earning a bigger audience than rivals Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmell, Colbert rarely pulled in more than two and a half million viewers. Meanwhile, Fox News late-night host Greg Gutfeld has routinely earned around 3.2 million viewers in 2025 despite that Fox News is available in fewer homes than CBS.
Colbert recently tried to soften his extremist reputation. In November, the radical left-wing TV host tried to gaslight GQ magazine with a track toward the middle by claiming he’s “more conservative” than people might think.
“People perceive me as this sort of lefty figure,” Colbert claimed. “I think I’m more conservative than people think. I just happen to be talking about a government in extremis.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: Facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston, or at X/Twitter @WTHuston