President Barack Obama sat down with Stephen Colbert on Monday for a jocular interview, and also sat in for him for his recurring segment, "The Word."
After a nine-year run, the satirical news show is slated to end Dec. 18, after which time Colbert will move to CBS, where he'll replace David Letterman as host of "The Late Show."
According to USA Today, it was Obama's first and last appearance as president on the show.
Obama was a good sport while Colbert cracked wise and asked intentionally awkward questions. At one point, the Comedy Central host asked the president what it was like to be an emperor, taking a light jab at the president's recent executive order on immigration.
"You realize you're an emperor now; it has been declared," said Colbert. "You are Barackus Maximus I. ... Why did you burn the Constitution and become an emperor?"
The jab revealed itself to be an alley-oop, as Obama had a canned answer ready to go.
"You know, actually, Stephen, everything that we have done is scrupulously within the law, and has been done by previous Democratic and Republican presidents," he said. "We can't deport 11 million folks who are here, the vast majority of whom are good people who are just trying to get ahead and trying to make sure their families can get ahead. So instead of devoting a whole lot of resources on separating families, grabbing some mom who's working at a hotel or some dad who's working in a kitchen somewhere, and separating them out, let's focus on deporting felons."
The liberal pair also discussed the Democrats' "shellacking" in the midterms, the economy, and the Keystone XL pipeline.
After the interview, Obama hosted his own segment, where he joked about the federal government's famously error-prone healthcare website.
"Remember the original HealthCare.gov website? I think that's where Disney got the idea for Frozen," Obama quipped.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.