Move over, boring political interviews – last night’s Late Show delivered the most electrifying TV moment since Will Smith’s Oscar slap. Karoline Leavitt, the 27-year-old TikTok star turned White House Press Secretary, didn’t just appear on Colbert’s show – she completely rewrote the rules of engagement.
Dressed more like she was heading to a Brooklyn coffee shop than a network television appearance (oversized blazer, crisp white sneakers), Leavitt transformed Colbert’s usual smug liberal playground into a Gen Z conservative battleground. When the host tried his typical “Trump is childish” routine, she shot back with viral-ready comebacks about “old media dinosaurs” and called Canada “on its knees” from Trump’s tariffs.
The real fireworks started when Colbert accused her of attacking press freedom. “Steve, Americans don’t trust your AP and Reuters anymore,” she clapped back, dropping the kind of “vibe check” language that had her 728K Twitter followers cheering in real-time. By the time she told Colbert he was “stuck in 1990,” the studio audience didn’t know whether to boo or beg for more.
