“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert is facing backlash for a joke he made about President Donald Trump on Monday night that many are calling “homophobic.” 
 
 During his opening monologue, Colbert went off on Trump over the President’s treatment of CBS News’ John Dickerson, who saw an interview with Trump abruptly ended when he asked about the President’s unproven claims that then-President Obama had wiretapped Trump and members of his campaign. As Dickerson and Colbert are both CBS employees, Colbert felt it his duty to say the things Dickerson himself could not. 
 
 “Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine,” Colbert said near the end of the insult-laden rant. “You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c–k holster.” The final remark has drawn the internet’s ire, with viewers taking to social media to declare Colbert is homophobic.The hashtag #FireColbert began spreading around Twitter, along with calls for people to boycott sponsors of the late-night show. 
 
 CBS did not immediately respond to Variety’s request for comment. 
 
 Of course, this is not the first time Colbert has been the subject of a campaign to get him pulled off the air. Back in 2014 when he was hosting “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, that show’s official Twitter account posted a message saying, ““I am willing to show Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” The tweet was meant to satirize Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snider, who started a charity to benefit Native Americans. Many perceived the tweet as a racist assault on Asians and Asian-Americans, leading to the creation of the hashtag #CancelColbert. Colbert reveled in the controversy, however, even promoting it on future episodes of “The Colbert Report.” 
 
 If and how he will respond to the current firestorm remains to be seen. Read some of the reactions to Colbert’s joke below. 
 
 Waaaaaaay over the line. Needs to issue a formal apology & go on several weeks of UNPAID leave. Else, #FireColbert. https://t.co/CcD09EHtvn — John Panda Skjult (@skjultster) May 2, 2017 
 
 Unfunny show has now become a disgusting show. Turning off CBS. #FireColbert — Daniel Doran (@danielktdoran) May 2, 2017 
 
 You know, it's time to #FireColbert cos if this was Rush saying this about Obama his head would roll. It's time to level the playing field https://t.co/SwXHHFFb3c — Jake Taylor (@Number7Catches) May 2, 2017 
 
 On one hand, @JimmyKimmelLive tugging at the heartstrings with genuine feels. On the other, homophobic @colbertlateshow. #FireColbert — It Comeys At Night (@ItComeysAtNight) May 2, 2017 
 
 #FIRECOLBERT His remarks about our president were disgusting even for him. — Claricia Quinn (@ClariciaQ) May 2, 2017 
 
 That's really out of line. Won't watch Colbert again. Don't like his show anyway. So politically correct until it comes 2 this? #FireColbert — Candy (@Candlest) May 2, 2017 

 Stephen Colbert Goes Homophobic on Trump 
 
 Stephen Colbert Goes Homophobic On Donald Trump 
 
 Stephen Colbert unleashed a torrent of anti-Trump jokes on his show Monday night, ending with a cock-in-Trump's-mouth jab that made his audience roar. 
 
 The 12-minute tirade was dedicated to the 100-day mark in Trump's presidency, and Colbert went after Trump with a vengeance. 
 
 The jokes included, "The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's cock holster." 
 
 The audience loved it, but ... hard to ignore it's a seriously homophobic punchline ... the kind of thing that usually gets celebs in hot water. 

 The Federal Communications Commission is scrutinizing Stephen Colbert's vulgar joke about President Trump on “The Late Show” this week, according to Chairman Ajit Pai, and will consider a possible fine. 
 
 “I have had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints — and we’ve gotten a number of them — we are going to take the facts that we find, and we are going to apply the law as it’s been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts, and we’ll take the appropriate action,” Pai said Thursday on Philadelphia radio station WPHT-AM. 
 
 On his late-night comedy show on CBS Monday, Colbert said of the president: “The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c--- holster” 
 
 Colbert responded to criticism (#FireColbert trended on Twitter) Wednesday night with a qualified apology. 
 
 “I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be,” Colbert said, reflecting on a joke that some viewers considered homophobic. “I’m not going to repeat the phrase. But I just want to say, for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love in their own way, is to me an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But that.” 
 
 At the same time, Colbert doubled down on his general approach to ripping the president in his comedy. 
 
 “Folks, if you saw my monologue Monday, you know that I was a little upset with Donald Trump for insulting a friend of mine,” Colbert said. “So, at the end of that monologue, I had a few choice insults for the president in return. I don’t regret that. I believe he can take care of himself. I have jokes; he has the launch codes. So, it’s a fair fight.” 
 
 Because his show airs late at night, Colbert has more freedom than people who appear on television earlier in the day. But he could still be penalized for using obscene language. 
 
 According to the FCC, “for content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person's prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a 'patently offensive' way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” 
 
 Andrew Schwartzman, a media law specialist at the Georgetown University Law Center, said he believes Colbert and CBS are safe. 
 
 “What Colbert said, if run unbleeped, probably wouldn't meet the test for indecency that applies before 10 p.m.,” Schwartzman said. The FCC's indecency standard is lower than its obscenity standard. Indecent content “portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.” 
 
 As Schwartzman sees it, “there is zero chance this could meet the obscenity test.” 
 
 Pai was far less definitive in his remarks. “I don't want to prejudge whatever determination the FCC might make,” he said. 
 
 Whether the FCC comes down on Colbert or not, he might consider the company he keeps by descending into quips about oral sex. 
 
 After Infowars founder Alex Jones said in March that Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) “looks like the archetypal c---sucker,” Jones’s ex-wife tried to submit the remark as evidence in a child custody trial. When Fox News’s Jesse Watters said of Ivanka Trump last week that he “really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” he took an abrupt “vacation” while the outrage died down. 
 
 Colbert's liberal viewers might take a moment to reflect, too. 
 
 “Our motto,” Michelle Obama said in her address to the Democratic National Convention last year, “is when they go low, we go high.” 
 
 Yeah, about that: The threat of a violent protest prevented conservative commentator and best-selling author Ann Coulter from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley last week. Liberal readers of the New York Times are flooding the newspaper’s public editor with complaints about the recent hiring of conservative columnist Bret Stephens — a conservative who didn’t even support Trump during the election, by the way. 
 
 [The problem with calling Bret Stephens a climate change 'denier'] 
 
 The new chair of the Democratic National Committee, Thomas Perez, can’t seem to stop cussing in public. And every couple of hours, an automated Twitter account created by a Chicago software developer tweets the name, hometown, occupation and employer of an individual who donated to Trump’s campaign. 
 
 Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are holding a week-long series of rallies across the U.S., and Perez has some choice words for Republican leaders. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) 
 
 “It is very clearly doxxing and harassing small-dollar donors,” Brianna Wu, a Democratic congressional candidate in Massachusetts, told me last week. 
 
 “There’s a real sense — that we have to get past on the left — that every person who voted for Trump is evil,” she added. 
 
 That “real sense” appears to foster a mentality (among some) in which Trump and his supporters deserve whatever venom his detractors feel like spewing. 
 
 Colbert’s comedy is often laced with anti-Trump commentary; it’s usually clever, and it has propelled him to the top of the late-night ratings. But by hitting below the belt Monday, he rushed the bro-ternity of Jones and Watters and became the latest liberal to ignore Obama’s “go high” mantra. 
 
 This post, originally published Tuesday, May 2, has been updated. Paul Farhi contributed to this report. 

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 Donald Trump supporter and major Stephen Colbert non-fan Karl Rove participated in Fox News Channel’s new 5 PM program The Fox News Specialists on Tuesday, when talk turned to media outlets that have blasted as homophobic Colbert’s Monday monologue about Trump. 
 
 #FireColbert was trending worldwide on Twitter Tuesday afternoon and evening after Monday’s Late Show broadcast. In the opening monologue, Colbert had many things to say to Trump, hours after CBS News played its POTUS 100 Days interview, in which Trump insulted Face the Nation anchor John Dickerson more than once. 
 
 “Let me introduce you to something we call The Tiffany Way,” Colbert began. “When you insult one member of the CBS family you insult us all.” 
 
 Then he returned the favor: 
 
 – You’re not the POTUS; you’re the BLOTUS. You’re a regular Gorge Washington. – Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. – You have more people marching against you than cancer. – You talk like a sign-language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c*ck holster. 
 
 Tuesday afternoon, the FNC show’s three regulars — Eric Bolling, Katherine Timpf, and Eboni K. Williams — discussed particularly that last gag. 
 
 Timpf called it “not really” homophobic but “a dumb joke”: 
 
 “I did stand-up comedy for years,” she said. “You go in to any open mic in the city where people who are starting cause their bros thought they were funny, they will all tell some version of that joke. I’m offended he makes that much money to tell a joke that dumb, but the outrage seems a little manufactured.” 
 
 Williams felt the same, calling it a not-worthy-of-CBS joke that “seemed more like a low-budget digital” network gag. 
 
 Guest Rove, however, blasted Colbert’s monologue as “obscene, lewd, and shows how out of touch that part of the media is with the rest of America.” 
 
 Rove announced: “I’m going to continue to do what I do with anything Colbert: I am going to refuse to watch the SOB.” 
 
 Rove is among Colbert’s most devoted non-fans, dating back to the host’s Comedy Central days when, as conservative gasbag host of The Colbert Report, he tried to interview “Translucent American Karl Rove” about his super PAC, but discovered Rove is a shy guy who doesn’t do television, except any show on Fox News Channel. So he interviewed a ham loaf wearing glasses instead.
– Stephen Colbert has directed plenty of insults at President Trump, but a critic says one delivered during his Late Show monologue on Monday was "disgusting even for him." It's a sentiment being seconded by many. After noting Trump insulted Face the Nation's John Dickerson before abruptly ending an interview with him, Colbert, nearing the end of his monologue, said he felt compelled to throw insults back at Trump, which he then did. "You attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla who got hit in the head," he said, per Variety. "In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's c--- holster." That final comment, which received a roar from the audience, sparked a #FireColbert hashtag on Twitter with users calling it "homophobic." TMZ also called it "a seriously homophobic punchline," while Karl Rove, appearing on Fox News, said it was "obscene, lewd, and shows how out of touch that part of the media is with the rest of America," per Deadline. Others, including among the LGBT community, maintained the comment was not homophobic. Either way, Callum Borchers at the Washington Post says that "by hitting below the belt," Colbert "became the latest liberal to ignore [Michelle] Obama's 'go high' mantra." Colbert and CBS have not commented. (See what Colbert had to say about Bill O'Reilly.)