Big alert from the president: SICKO HOLLYWOOD LIBS have BANNED his Stephen Colbert interview because of something something something!!!
On Monday, Donald Trump’s account quote tweeted a video from an account using the display name “Blacks for Trump” (@BlacksForTrump5) alleging that CBS had taken down a Sept. 22, 2015 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert featuring the president. The video is bizarrely edited and only barely comprehensible, but claims, “You are not supposed to see this video” and that “CBS DELETED this entire episode from their official website. You will not find these segments on YouTube either.”
While Colbert could be reasonably accused of lobbing softballs during the interview, the video also selectively edits the episode in question to cut off jokes and make it appear as though the host is a Trump supporter. (He is not, though it’s unclear whether the editing was intended as some kind of snark or was made in wild-eyed earnestness.)
Gizmodo has reached out to CBS for comment, and we’ll update this post if we hear back. But the CBS All Access website did not show any episodes of The Late Show prior to the month of October 2018. Clips of the Sept. 22, 2015 episode of the show in question, however, were available via that site, and more than one was on The Late Show’s official YouTube. It is hardly unusual for networks to pull older episodes of shows from streaming services due to licensing restrictions, something that the Verge noted was a particular problem with CBS All Access in a 2018 review.
In other words, it’s super-obvious this is yet more vapid bullshit the president and/or the various underlings that tweet from his account—it’s not always clear which—either lack the capacity to think critically about or are just throwing out as some kind of distraction.
Trump has previously spread outright lies alleging blacklisting on Google, discrimination against conservatives by social media companies, and that the media deliberately cooks up “Fake News” about his presidency. Even by those low, low standards, this is a particularly lazy hit job, less an Orwellian missive from the Ministry of Truth than a cringeworthy FWD: FWD: from a confused relative who just figured out how to use email.
This video has apparently been circulating among the most credulous #MAGA types on Twitter and Facebook since at least April 2018, after which point the trail dithers off into an underbelly of social media spam. It appears to be the first tweet on the @BlacksForTrump5 account, which is not widely followed, raising the question of how the president or his staff even found it. Its only newsworthiness is that Trump retweeted it, which would be profoundly embarrassing were Trump not well past the point of feeling shame about anything and everyone else well aware the emperor has a distinct shortage of things other than clothes.
Beyond that, it’s just another middle finger to anyone who actually cares about the consequences of his presidency—as well as a reminder that even after the horrific events of the past few weeks, which have included a mail bomb campaign and a mass murder at a synagogue, Trump is not slowing down with the conspiracy stuff.
Update: 10/30/2018, 11:20 a.m. ET: In response to a request for comment, CBS directed us to this tweet from Colbert: