During what may be his last visit to “The Late Show,” Barack Obama used a joke about Stephen Colbert’s fictional presidential ambitions to land a devastating blow against the current White House occupant, all without mentioning President Trump by name.
The 64-year-old Obama appeared on May 5, 2026, at Chicago’s soon-to-open Obama Presidential Center, where Colbert playfully floated the idea of running for president in 2028 as his show nears its final episode on May 21, 2026.
“Well, you know, the bar has changed,” Obama said, pausing before driving the point home. “Let me put it this way, I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we’ve seen.”
The audience erupted. Colbert pressed: Was that an endorsement? “It was not,” Obama replied flatly, leaving the joke and its sharper edge to do the work.
A Pointed Message Beneath The Banter
Despite the lighter moments, Obama turned serious when Colbert asked which presidential powers should be off-limits.
“We can survive a lot,” Obama said. “We can’t overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system. The awesome power of the state. You can’t have a situation in which whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends.”
He added a second warning: “Don’t politicize our military.” Obama said the country may now need to “codify” what had once been an unwritten norm — an oblique acknowledgment that informal guardrails have failed under the current administration, which has been openly hostile toward most late-night comedians since President Trump’s January 20, 2025, inauguration.
Aliens, Selfies And A Self-Nominated Emissary
The conversation wasn’t entirely political. Obama addressed remarks he made to podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen in February 2026, when he said aliens “are real, but I haven’t seen them.” On Wednesday, he walked it back with a characteristically dry dismissal of conspiracy theories.
“For those of you who still think that we’ve got little green men underground somewhere — one of the things you learn as president is government is terrible at keeping secrets,” Obama said. He went further, arguing that if Washington were truly hiding alien craft, “some guy guarding the installation would have taken a selfie with one of the aliens and sent it to his girlfriend to impress her. There would be leaks.”
Should aliens ever arrive, Obama volunteered himself: “I think I would be a good emissary for the planet.”
A Symbolic Setting In Chicago
The interview marked Obama’s first on the 19.3-acre Obama Presidential Center campus, which is set to open in June 2026 with a museum, library, and outdoor spaces, including the Women’s Garden. President Trump has dismissed the project as a “disaster.”
When Colbert first announced Obama as a guest in April, the booking was widely read as a subtle dig at the White House. Wednesday’s broadcast removed any subtlety. Before the segment closed, Obama turned to the host with an unmistakable note of gratitude — and finality — for a comedian whose program has, in its closing weeks, become something more than a comedy show.
The Late Show’s Politically Charged Ending
CBS announced in July 2025 that it would retire the franchise — launched by David Letterman more than three decades ago — insisting the move was a “financial decision.” The announcement, however, came shortly after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount, CBS’s parent company, for settling a lawsuit brought by President Trump.
President Trump, 79, celebrated the cancellation in a Truth Social post that same month, claiming Colbert’s “talent was even less than his ratings” and predicting Jimmy Kimmel would be next. Months later, ABC temporarily pre-empted Kimmel’s show following MAGA backlash — a moment Obama publicly condemned, accusing the administration of trying to “muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
Letterman, the original “Late Show” host, has been similarly unsparing. He said he was in “disbelief” when he learned of the cancellation, telling a recent interviewer: “TV may be not the money machine it once was. On the other hand, what about the humanity for Stephen and the humanity of people who love him and the humanity for people who still enjoyed that 11:30 respite?”
Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” has been announced to fill the slot.
Colbert revealed in March 2026 that he’ll help write a new “Lord of the Rings” screenplay produced by Peter Jackson once the show ends, capping an 11-year run.
