The Reason Stephen Colbert Doesn't Want Anyone To Buy The New Trump Tell-All

While Stephen Colbert built his late-night comedy brand under the guise of a caricatured conservative pundit — first as a cast member of "The Daily Show," then as the host of his own much beloved "Colbert Report" — the current CBS "Late Show" host has taken a hard tack when it comes to ex-President Donald Trump. 

Colbert, who has implemented a personal ban on uttering the preceding commander-in-chief's name on-air since November 2020 in order to avoid ennobling or elevating "the former guy," as he put it (via The Wrap), has instead switched out Number 45's first and last for a long list of alternatives and euphemisms, much in the vein of those compiled over the years by news outlets like Jezebel. But as the Daily Beast reported on October 6, it seems now, almost a year after Colbert launched his moratorium, his streak has suddenly ended — all thanks to a single White House tell-all.

During the October 5 episode of "The Late Show," Colbert opened his show with a singular agenda: taking the author of "I'll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House," former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, to task for writing it in the first place. His strategy? Spoiling it for viewers nationwide. So why is Colbert so hellbent on disparaging Grisham and her book? It might just boil down to a single phrase: "too little, too late."

Stephen Colbert made sure to mince no words as to why he found Stephanie Grisham's tell-all to be a repugnant venture. "There's a new tell-all from former White House press secretary and Morticia Addams' divorced sister, Stephanie Grisham," Colbert began, referring to Grisham's former boss, Melania Trump. After noting that Grisham never once "gave a single press conference" during her employ, he noted that post-White House, "she's spilling all the tea in her new book, 'I Just Recently Grew a Spine.'"

Colbert then stated his intention to thwart Grisham's book sales, explaining that he did not want her to "sell a single copy of her tell-all about the time she told us nothing" as a press secretary. As the Daily Beast noted, spoilers included an instance in which Donald Trump borrowed make-up from Grisham for a speaking event in Saudi Arabia. 

Another cringe-worthy excerpt summarized by Colbert described Trump's attempts to defend why he avoided vegetarian cuisine; as Grisham recounted, Trump stated at the time that "it messes with your body chemistry, your brain ... and if I lose even one brain cell, we're f*cked." A second stated that at one White House Easter Egg Roll event, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump, along with their children, cut others lined up to take a photo with their patriarch. "Like he's a character at Disney World," Colbert remarked. As of this report, Grisham has not responded to Colbert's call-out.