Though he may occasionally turn himself into a character in Candy Crush: The Movie to prove the oddity of films based on non-narrative apps, Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show aims to go viral far less than the carnivalesque The Tonight Show or Jimmy Kimmel Live! Unfortunately, in part because he indulges the Internet-fueled hunger for brief, mindlessly consumable content less than other series, his CBS talk show hasn’t been doing as well with ratings as his main competitor. (Colbert’s show has averaged 2.81 million viewers while The Tonight Show has gotten 3.68.) In an interview (perhaps somewhat ironically given the virality talk, with BuzzFeed), Colbert addressed his lack of driving desire for virality, and emphasized the importance of late night TV actually speaking to current events; he then got candid with his own take on current events, particularly the election, as well as the nature of covering it on a comedy show.
He said of avoiding aiming too desperately for virality:
I’m waiting for the world to care enough about what I do that we can have a conversation about what I’m doing. I think if I forced it, that’s not improvisation. That’s manipulation.
Smith noted, “When you watch Fallon or James Cordon, there’s a sense that the show is constructed from a series of viral clips that are really almost internet-first and are slotted into TV,” and asked Colbert to speak specifically to that. The host responded that he’s “not opposed to that, but [he doesn’t] think about it that way.” He said he thinks, “‘what can I do on what just happened?’ Those things you’re talking about aren’t the most current or topical.”
And speaking of topicality, that’s when the interview transitions into a discussion about how the show has positioned itself in covering the 2016 election. Smith asks what Colbert thinks of Clinton, recalling his joke that she’s “so untrustworthy that Beyoncé made a concept album about it.” Colbert said:
My favorite was ‘you are so bad at running for president the only person you could beat is Donald Trump.’ That feels true. I think she might be a fine president, but she’s not good at running for President.
Smith wondered if Colbert has tried to be balanced in his coverage, to which he responded:
I… don’t have any compunction to be balanced. I want there to be something to talk about about everyone if we can honestly find it.
After Colbert says that Hillary had been “very cautious” in the fall (like she was “in a witness relocation program” or like a “ghost”), Smith asks if she’s not a good target for jokes, and Colbert says:=
When you’ve got a giant orange manatee to harpoon on the other side — I don’t know if anybody fishes, but fish go where the water is good, where they don’t have to work as hard. You cast your lure into the eddy. And Trump’s always in an eddy of his own self-importance and his own changing ideas and his own craziness. He’s an entertaining and an entertainment figure, and you get stuck to him. You have to discipline yourself to look for something for Mrs. Clinton to do. But then when you find out what it is, it’s like a policy paper. You [try making] jokes about fucking policy papers! Can I say fucking?
Perhaps the best part of the interview is when he then realizes he can let loose after being so used to self-censoring on network TV:
Oh, fucking, fucking, fucking! One of the things that drives me crazy about CBS is that they’re very nice people, but they’re… very nice people, that’s the problem. NCIS can stack stack up hookers like cordwood but I can’t say the word ‘goddamn.’
Meanwhile, of the potential of a Trump presidency, he unsurprisingly says, “I think it would be bad. I don’t have to be fair or balanced about that. I don’t think he’s a serious person.” He talks both about how Trump’s proclamations of “Mexican [being] rapists” and statements about banning Muslims don’t “inspire confidence,” and about the candidate’s excessively wavering views are disquieting. “It worries me that someone who can change his position so much might be in the White House. He seems essentially emotional rather than thoughtful…I want to call ‘no backsies’ for this week because Trump has changed his position so many times, and I want to say ‘no fair changies.’ Whatever happens on Monday…has to be real on Tuesday…and whatever policy gets stated…you have to live by it on Wednesday so by the end of the week [there’s] some sense.”
Watch the interview here.