Colbert Shares Cut Late Show Jokes, Gets Emotional at WGA Awards

Stephen Colbert cracked wise, did right by his writing team, and then got a bit emotional while being honored at the 2026 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday night.

Colbert—who has lorded over CBS’ The Late Show since September 2015, and had runs on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report before that—was presented by Robert Smigel with the Walter Bernstein Award, which honors a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.

During his acceptance speech (which begins at the 15:00 mark above), Colbert acknowledged that “no one achieves success in this business by themselves,” at which point he gave props to his 20 Late Show writers there in New York’s Edison Ballroom. He detailed how the staff is divvied up into four groups: writer-producers, writers for guest bit and field pieces, monologue and desk piece writers, and writers for the Cold Open.

That latter group, he said, is made to abide by two rules: “One, you never want to open the show with diarrhea. And two, Gary Busey is available.”

Since his Late Show staff was not nominated by the WGA this year for Comedy/Variety Series: Talk or Sketch (HBO’s Last Week Tonight won for a ninth time in 12 years), Colbert at the 20:30 mark rattles off some of the jokes he cut that might have garnered his staff an award if they’d made it to air.

Among them:

• “The actual go message from President Trump to launch last week’s attack in Iran: ‘Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts, good luck.’ Coincidentally, ‘No aborts, good luck’ is also the majority opinion in the Dobbs decision.”

• “At the height of #MeToo, when it was reported that Louis CK took off all his clothes to masturbate in front of two women, one of my female writers offered to me, ‘Oh my god, he masturbates like a toddler poops!'”

• Off of First Lady Melania Trump wearing a long-sleeved black dress, with a black veil, to the papal palace: “‘You know what they say, dress for the job you want.’ Didn’t do that one, didn’t want to get a call….”

• Off then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem being grilled by Congress about her alleged affair with Corey Lewandowski, with her husband in the galley right behind her: “‘I’m guessing that’s not the first time she’s made him sit in a chair and watch.’ That one came really close.”

Colbert also shared a cut joke that ended with a NSFW McDonald’s tagline—and then donned a sweatshirt bearing said slogan, that his staff gifted him with at Christmas.

The late night vet went on to lobby those in the room to “employ these lovely folks” after Late Show wraps May 21, by sharing a fun fact about each writer (e.g. one of them “has a score of 4.6 on wikiFeet”).

In closing, Colbert said that one of the things he will miss most is hearing the writers room roar with laughter in the room down the hall. “If you’re ever lucky enough to be in that room, you will always want to be in that sound,” he said.

“And what’s really going to be hard,” he continued, his voice cracking with emotion, “is missing these people… who despite whatever fresh hell that the news washes in, make that sound happen every day.”