Stephen Colbert Eager to Crack Jokes About Donald Trump on 'Late Show'
George Clooney will be the first guest and Kendrick Lamar, the first performer.
— -- Stephen Colbert is itching to take over the "Late Show," if for no other reason than to make fun of Donald Trump on national TV.
Colbert, who officially succeeds David Letterman as host of the CBS program on Sept. 8, addressed his new job at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills on Monday. There, he mentioned how eager he is to crack jokes at the Republican presidential candidate's expense.
Colbert commented, "I want to do jokes on Donald Trump so badly and I have no venue, so right now I'm just dry-Trumping."
In addition, he quipped, “Every night before I go to bed, I light a candle and pray that he stays in the race. And I also pray that no one puts that candle anywhere near his hair.”
What will a Colbert-led version of "Late Show" look like? He's still trying to figure that out. "I think the order that the guests appear and the comedy appears is something we'll discover as we go along," he said. "It's hard to know what you're going to do until you do it."
He mentioned that George Clooney will be his first "Late Show" guest and rapper Kendrick Lamar will be his first musical guest. Lamar was Colbert's final musical guest on his old Comedy Central program, "The Colbert Report."
Colbert on Monday also reflected on his appearance on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" finale last Thursday night, and the praise for Stewart he delivered during the program. He commented, "I felt like a rodeo clown trying to keep him on that stage. I thought he was honestly going to leave.
"When Steve Carell and all the rest of the correspondents came out at the end and we all jumped around...we were all chanting, ‘Made him cry! Made him cry!’ I think that might be my favorite thing I ever did on 'The Daily Show,'" Colbert revealed.