CNN host: Colbert went ‘too far’ with Trump rant

CNN host Michael Smerconish told viewers Saturday that CBS’ “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert went “too far” with his controversial rant about President Trump and Vladimir Putin.

“[Colbert] went too far with his Trump-Putin oral sex reference, which crossed the line,” Smerconish said on his program. “It was crass, and it was in bad taste.”

The CNN host used former first lady Michelle Obama’s words against Colbert, warning that his insult was “a far cry from the Dem campaign mantra: When they go low we go high.”

As part of a broader monologue on rhetoric being used on the left, the CNN host argued that Colbert had played into Trump’s hands by going to the gutter to attack the president.

“The jeering and mocking is exactly why people hate politics,” Smerconish argued. “The left is understandably fired up, but there is only one beneficiary in a climate of liberal intolerance and that’s Donald Trump.”

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Smerconish was referring to a joke Colbert made about Trump and Putin during his own monologue on Monday.

“The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c–k holster,” Colbert said Monday.

Smerconish remarked that Colbert’s comments had no place in CBS’ programming.

“That line might be suitable for, say, ‘Real Time with Bill Maher,’ but not network television, the so-called Tiffany network, which used to be the programming gold standard,” he said. “Quite a departure for the Sunday school-teaching Colbert.”

Colbert defended his comments on Wednesday during a taping of his show, saying about Trump, “I have jokes, he has the launch codes. So, it’s a fair fight.”

The FCC said this week it will investigate and take “appropriate action” after receiving “a number” of complaints about the episode.