🔥 BREAKING: Trump ERUPTS After Jimmy Kimmel & Stephen Colbert TORCH His “Dirty Secrets” LIVE — Late-Night TV Ignites TOTAL MELTDOWN 💥

For years, President Donald J. Trump has treated late-night television as both a nuisance and a measuring stick, railing against jokes he deems unfair while closely tracking the ratings of those delivering them. But in recent months, that familiar skirmish has taken on a sharper edge, as two of television’s most influential hosts — Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert — have emerged not merely as individual critics, but as allies, amplifying each other’s attacks on Mr. Trump and his record.

Their collaboration, forged during the 2023 writers’ strike and sustained through a series of highly visible on-air moments, has coincided with some of the president’s most public displays of irritation toward the entertainment industry. Taken together, the episodes illustrate how political satire, once dismissed by Mr. Trump as irrelevant, continues to provoke a reaction from a president unusually attuned to cultural criticism.

The partnership between Mr. Kimmel of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Mr. Colbert of CBS’s The Late Show solidified during the prolonged Writers Guild of America strike in the summer of 2023. With their shows off the air, the hosts — joined by Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver — launched a podcast, Strike Force Five, to raise money for out-of-work staff members. The project quickly topped podcast charts, but it also did something less tangible and perhaps more enduring: it created a sense of solidarity among performers often portrayed as competitors.

Both Mr. Kimmel and Mr. Colbert have since referred to that period as formative. The strike, they have said, reminded them that their influence was greater when exercised collectively. That lesson became evident again in April 2024, when Mr. Kimmel hosted the Academy Awards and used his monologue to respond directly to a criticism Mr. Trump had posted online, calling him a “lousy host.”

Mr. Kimmel read the post aloud onstage and shot back with a pointed remark suggesting the former president had other obligations to attend to. The exchange electrified the room and quickly circulated online. Mr. Trump responded as he often does, posting repeatedly about Mr. Kimmel in the weeks that followed, questioning Oscar ratings and mocking the comedian’s relevance.

This time, however, the response did not remain one-sided. Mr. Colbert devoted a segment of his own show to defending Mr. Kimmel, framing the attack not as a personal feud but as part of a broader pattern in which Mr. Trump sought to intimidate critics through public shaming. Referring to their shared experience during the strike, Mr. Colbert jokingly called Mr. Kimmel his “podcast brother,” but the message was unmistakable: the hosts were prepared to stand together.

Their commentary has increasingly intersected with substantive political developments. Both men have devoted significant airtime to the congressional push to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, a cause that recently gained momentum after a near-unanimous House vote. The hosts used the moment to highlight what they described as contradictions in Mr. Trump’s claims of transparency and his allies’ resistance to disclosure.

That focus has coincided with renewed scrutiny of Mr. Trump’s legal and financial entanglements, including a July 2025 settlement in which Paramount, CBS’s parent company, agreed to pay $16 million to resolve a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview. Mr. Colbert addressed the settlement on air, portraying it as an example of corporate caution in the face of political pressure — and as further evidence, in his telling, of a former president eager to use litigation to shape media narratives.

Mr. Trump’s reaction has been characteristically swift and personal. In posts and remarks, he has accused late-night hosts of bias, dishonesty and irrelevance, arguing that they serve as mouthpieces for political opponents rather than entertainers. Yet his continued engagement with their criticism has only underscored how seriously he takes their influence.

Media scholars note that late-night television occupies a peculiar space in American politics, blending humor with commentary in a way that reaches audiences traditional news outlets often miss. “What’s different here is not that comedians are criticizing a president,” said one professor of media studies. “It’s that the president is responding as if they are political actors on equal footing — and in some ways, they are.”

For Mr. Kimmel and Mr. Colbert, the alliance has become part of the story they tell on air: a reminder that satire can function as both entertainment and resistance. While neither host claims to be shaping policy, their combined reach — and Mr. Trump’s visible frustration — suggests that their words still matter to the man they lampoon.

In an era when political conflict increasingly plays out across cultural platforms, the clash between a president and two comedians has come to symbolize something larger: a struggle over who gets to define the narrative, and how much power humor still holds in the public square.