Colbert Hopes to Be Nicer Now That He Can Finally Stop Thinking About Trump

Stephen Colbert has been on high alert for four years, squarely focused on monitoring the president's misdeeds, but he says when Joe Biden became President-elect on Saturday,  the catharsis was profound for him.

On Monday's Late Show, Colbert revealed that he cried with relief after the news broke, and when his wife told him he'll never have to talk about Trump again, he cried with joy.

"You know what I'm looking forward to? Sleep," he said. "But also, the possibility that for the first time in four years, we'll be able to shift our collective focus away from him, onto anything else — maybe each other. Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, I got up this morning, I was walking down the steps, and I just felt all this available brain space. It's not filled with anything else yet. It's just like a clean kitchen counter where something could be made if we're just not cluttering it up with that guy." 

Colbert also expressed an earnest desire to steer his comedy away from being as mean as it's gotten in recent years.

"I'm also looking forward to possibly people being nicer, including me," he said. "One of the things I've found about this job is I tend to reflect back the national tone, and that tone comes from the top. The president's only emotions are 'angry,' 'look at me,' and 'I'm angry you're not looking at me.' And because he was the only thing we were focused on for the last four years — and this is entirely my responsibility — I've done harsher jokes than I've ever done in my entire life. This is why they say 'don't wrestle with a pig,' because you both get filthy and the pig likes it. And also, your pig impression really hasn't gotten any better in the last four years."

Colbert had a little more harsh to dish out, however, saying "I'm mostly looking forward to the idea of knowing things again. The last four years have been an assault on objective reality. He doesn't want you to know anything. He doesn't want you to know what causes global warming, how many people showed up to his inauguration, what's in his taxes, how much his hair costs... We've spent the last four years debating the value of the Enlightenment with a reality show host!" 

"Personally, I think it's better to know than not to know," he added. "The last four years has proven that ignorance [is] less blissful than advertised." 

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.