Charlamagne Tha God was as frank as ever during his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Wednesday night.
The host of The Breakfast Club radio show began by weighing in on the anti-police brutality protests that have swept the nation over the past week, telling Stephen Colbert, “I think America has been past its breaking point and I’m actually shocked this is just happening now, to be honest with you.”
Just two days ago, Charlamagne and his co-hosts attempted to have a conversation about race with ultra-conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. It went about as well as could have been expected. At one point, Limbaugh denied the existence of white privilege and Charlamagne told him he was being “delusional.”
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“What really bothered me about that conversation is after I left that conversation, I felt like it wasn’t productive,” Charlamagne told Colbert. “And I have no problem talking to people from the other side. I just have to feel like that’s really your truth. I don’t know if I got that from Rush. It felt like more of a performance.”
Colbert went on to compare it to his one and only interview with Donald Trump, who delivered a similar “performance” on his show in 2015. “They say anything they want in front of the microphone, but then they come on your show and act like a reasonable man,” he said.
“It didn’t feel productive, man. It felt like a waste of my time to be honest with you,” Charlamagne added of the Limbaugh chat. “I always think it’s great when white people use their privilege to combat prejudice. But if you can’t get to the root of why these situations happen, which is white supremacy, which is white privilege, then what kind of conversation are we really having?”
Earlier in the show Wednesday night, Charlamagne also responded to the backlash that followed his recent interview with former Vice President Joe Biden. At the end of their talk, Biden told Charlamagne “you ain’t black” if you can’t decide between him and Trump.
While that comment didn’t “bother” him, Charlamagne said he didn’t like the way Biden tried to play it off afterwards. “I apologized immediately for responding to Charlamagne, who was baiting me, and if you looked at that film you’ll see I was smiling at him,” Biden told CNN’s Don Lemon.
“I didn’t bait you,” Charlamagne shot back on The Late Show. “Vice President Biden volunteered that fish. I didn’t throw no bait out there for that fish whatsoever.”
At the same time, Charlamagne did say that he liked Biden’s speech on race in Philadelphia this week, explaining that it reminded him of Barack Obama’s major speech on the same issue during the 2008 campaign. “He was talking the way he needed to talk to win this election,” he said of Biden, “because right now it just seems like he’s expecting Trump to lose. But you have to play to win.”
His big advice for Biden heading into the general election? “Really lean into blackness.”
