Colbert's Final Biden Impression Lands as Trump Hits Historic Approval Low
TL;DR: Stephen Colbert revived his Joe Biden impression one last time on May 13, 2026 — calling it his "last Biden impression ever" — to mock Trump's record-low approval ratings. The Late Show closes permanently on May 21. Trump's disapproval on the economy sits at 70%, the worst numbers any sitting president has faced in modern polling.
On Wednesday night, with eight days left before CBS pulls the plug on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," the host slipped on those aviator shades one final time and delivered what might be the sharpest political joke of his 11-year run: a Biden impression that wasn't really about Biden at all.
It was about Trump's polling numbers. Specifically, how catastrophically bad they've become.
CNN polling analyst Harry Enten appeared in a clip during the monologue, flatly stating that Trump is currently facing the "five worst polls ever for any president." That list, Enten noted with obvious satisfaction, doesn't include Joe Biden. Colbert's cue arrived on a platter.
The aviators went on. The slow shuffle came next — that bewildered, slightly-lost cadence the bit has always relied on. Colbert, still in character, addressed the studio audience: "That's right, Jack. I'm not in there 'cause I'm in here." He paused. "How's it going, Barack? I'm in here asking: Remember how much better it was when I was in charge?"
Then he announced it. "Last Biden impression ever." The character shuffled offstage, and the joke landed — which is to say, it cut deeper than a standard late-night bit had any right to.
What the Polling Actually Shows
Here's where the comedy gets serious. The numbers behind Colbert's bit aren't soft.
According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst survey cited in reporting by The Daily Beast, Trump's approval rating has sunk to 33% in some measures. Fox News puts him at 41% approval with a net margin of -18 points. But the economy number is the one that stings: 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, with more than two-thirds saying the country feels out of control.
That's not just bad. Historically unprecedented. Political scientists typically see approval floors like that during second-term scandal or outright economic collapse — not six months into a comeback.
Enten's framing on air made the point even clearer: Trump's numbers are worse than any comparable-period polling for any prior president. Biden never hit this low. That's the straight line Colbert needed, and it's why the impression worked. It wasn't a character bit pretending to be better. It was a sitting president's predecessor, theoretically retired from politics, still managing to look good by comparison. The real read here: Colbert didn't retire the Biden impression because it stopped being funny — he retired it because the contrast between a 33% president and his predecessor had become so stark that the joke wrote itself, and there was nowhere left to take it.
The Show That Never Got Soft
Here's what's striking about Colbert's final week: he hasn't eased up. If anything, he's swinging harder.
The Biden impression was the lighter part of Wednesday's monologue. Before that, Colbert spent time on something that barely registered in general news coverage — Trump's military operation in Iran and a specific name change that carries real legal weight.
According to The Daily Beast's reporting, the operation was renamed from "Operation Epic Fury" to "Operation Sledgehammer." Colbert's argument on air: the rename was designed to reset the 60-day clock on the War Powers Resolution — a congressional check on presidential military action that most people don't think about until it matters.
That's not a comedy premise. That's a constitutional claim dressed up in a monologue.
"Trump's war in Iran has also pushed America's economy into what financial experts call the poop shoot," Colbert said, and the audience laughed. But underneath that joke is reporting — actual reporting about how a name change on a military operation might extend presidential power beyond what Congress intended. Movie OTT's late-show tracker has been following Colbert's final episodes, and the trend across them shows he's kept this same intensity right to the end.
Why the Show Is Actually Ending
CBS announced last summer that "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" would close on May 21, 2026. The network said it was financial. Colbert's response, when it came, suggested something else.
In January 2026, Colbert went on air and called out Paramount's $16 million settlement with President Trump as "a big fat bribe" — directly criticizing his own network's parent company. Whether that accelerated the cancellation timeline or simply made it public is impossible to say. CBS executives stuck to the money story. Hard to say if anyone fully believed that.
What we know for certain: the network hasn't announced a replacement. That's unusual. CBS has held a late-night slot continuously since the 1950s — Jack Paar's departure in 1962, Letterman's jump from NBC in 1993, Colbert's own takeover in 2015, all handled with successors named months in advance. The fact that they're letting it go dark, even temporarily, suggests either a negotiation in progress or a deliberate choice to step back from the slot entirely.
The "Late Show" draws roughly 2-3 million nightly viewers on CBS, a number that's held steady through the final season, per Nielsen estimates. That's not a ratings disaster. It's a respectable audience for broadcast television in 2026. Which makes the cancellation feel less like a business decision and more like a choice.
Colbert's Run: What the Record Shows
Stephen Colbert took over from David Letterman in September 2015, inheriting a show that had lost its footing. What followed tracked almost perfectly with the political temperature of the country.
His show won the Peabody Award in 2017 for its first-term Trump coverage. It won the Emmy for Outstanding Variety Talk Series multiple times. The writing staff — many of them carried over from his "Colbert Report" days on Comedy Central (2005-2014) — consistently pushed harder than competitors.
The Biden impression wasn't the most technically precise in late night. Fair criticism. But it was consistent, recognizable, and always deployed in service of something — a specific political point, a policy contradiction, a moment of genuine absurdity in the news cycle. The aviators became shorthand for the whole thing. Simple. Effective.
What's different now, in the final week, is that Colbert isn't trading in nostalgia. He's not softening. He's still swinging at specific poll numbers, specific legal maneuvers, specific policy arguments — right up until the lights go out.
Where to Watch the Final Episodes (And Where It's Complicated)
"The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" airs 11:35 p.m. ET on CBS, and the final episode comes May 21, 2026.
For American viewers, it's straightforward: CBS and Paramount+. For everyone else, it gets messier.
US and International:
- Paramount+ — Full episodes stream within 24 hours of air (US-only currently)
- YouTube ("The Late Show" official channel) — Full monologues and segments upload within hours of broadcast, no regional blocking on most content
- CBS.com — Free with cable login
For Indian audiences specifically (and I know there's a real audience for American political commentary there) the situation is tight. Netflix India, Amazon Prime Video India, Disney+ Hotstar, JioCinema, SonyLIV, and Zee5 don't carry the show. No regional dub.
Your best bet: YouTube clips within hours of broadcast, or VPN access to Paramount+ if you're willing to go that route. Movie OTT has been tracking international streaming availability as the final week approaches — their where-to-watch tool updates daily and covers India-specific options better than most services.
What Comes After May 21
Colbert's next move is unannounced. No streaming deal. No new show. Nothing public.
CBS hasn't filled the slot either. That's either a long negotiation or a deliberate exit from the late-night game — hard to tell which.
What Wednesday's monologue made clear is that he's not going sentimental. He's not wrapping up themes or saying goodbye. He's delivering his best political material in the final week, which feels like the exact right choice. The Biden impression was the punctuation mark on a specific era of late-night television, the post-2016 moment when it felt like comedians had to be journalists, when the news was so absurd that satire became reporting.
That era's ending. So is this show.
Watch the official trailer:
