Fact Check: Is Trump’s claim CBS removed online evidence of his interview with Stephen Colbert true?
WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump escalated his feud with CBS in April 2025, particularly targeting '60 Minutes' with accusations of defamation and manipulated interviews, amid a $10 billion lawsuit.
Recently, the POTUS shared a clip of his 2015 appearance on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' and implied that CBS deliberately hid the episode from online viewers. But is there any truth to this? Let's find out below.
Claim: CBS removed online evidence of Donald Trump's interview with Stephen Colbert
On May 30, Donald Trump shared a clip of his 2015 appearance on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' and stated that CBS deliberately hid the episode from online viewers, according to Snopes.
The post on Truth Social read, "You are not supposed to see this video. CBS DELETED this entire episode from their official website. You will not find these segments on YouTube either."
Interestingly, some Trump supporters reshared the clip on social media platforms such as X and Facebook.
You are NOT supposed to see this video that President Trump just posted on Truth Social‼️ 😆👇🏼😂 pic.twitter.com/MX6rChYkSB
— Jewely💎Blue (@hollywood2pt0) May 31, 2025
Donald Trump's claim is partly true and partly false
President Donald Trump's claim that CBS removed online evidence of his interview with Stephen Colbert is partly true and partly false.
Indeed, the episode in question is not available on CBS' website till now. Only the latest season of the show, from 2025, is available, Snopes reported.
Moreover, some specific exchanges in the interview are also not on YouTube.
However, multiple segments of the 2015 interview between Colbert and Trump are available on CBS' YouTube page.
The clip the POTUS posted is from a September 22, 2015, appearance on the show, and is a much older episode than the ones available on CBS' official website.
Meanwhile, on September 23, 2015, the official 'Late Show' YouTube account posted an approximately four-minute clip from the interview with Trump.
The clip has garnered more than 17 million views so far.
Donald Trump previously claimed CBS tried to suppress his 2015 'Late Show' interview
This is not the first time President Donald Trump claimed that CBS tried to suppress his 2015 'Late Show' interview.
In 2018, certain news outlets reported that Trump reposted a video of the interview on X (formerly Twitter) with either the same or similar messaging and editing as his recent Truth Social post, per Snopes.
Meanwhile, the 2018 clip the president reposted is no longer available on the original X page as the account was suspended.
However, in an October 2018 post, Colbert responded to Trump's claim on X and linked to the same YouTube videos.
I don't know why the president would take time on a National Day of Mourning to retweet something weird like this, but the original clips have always been online. 16 million views. Here they are: https://t.co/8HsMzPlV8l https://t.co/U5kzfaqhOY https://t.co/g1mt2LYpXA
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) October 30, 2018
Colbert wrote, "I don't know why the president would take time on a National Day of Mourning to retweet something weird like this, but the original clips have always been online. 16 million views."
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for CBS informed a news agency that full episodes of 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' are only available to stream online 30 days after the initial airing, according to Snopes.
