As host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the comedian has been successful, receiving critical praise and leading the program to regularly becoming the top-rated late-night show, outpacing his younger rivals Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel — albeit against the backdrop of what Reuters termed “late-night TV’s fade-out.

David Letterman is subtly showing support for his successor Stephen Colbert after CBS' shock cancellation of "The Late Show."

Colbert’s late show on CBS has never won a TV Academy prize. The president could well now have changed that. The video plays like a cave painting from the Neolithic era or, even more distantly, from when late-night television still mattered: Stephen Colbert sits in the host chair and makes amends with Donald Trump.

Several comedians and talk-show hosts appeared in a sketch that also featured an animated Trump hugging the Paramount logo.

Monday night's (July 21) show also featured kiss cam-style pop-ins from supportive fellow talkers Anderson Cooper, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart and Adam Sandler.

"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin feared that CBS's decision to cancel Stephen Colbert's show could threaten First Amendment rights if it was politically motivated.