--- title: Stephen Colbert Interviews Donald Trump on "The Late Show" description: New York real estate mogul Donald Trump appeared on "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert Tuesday. canonical: https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-23T04:23:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:41:49.101Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Again Calls for a Border Wall og:description: The billionaire returned to his proposal in an interview with Stephen Colbert. og:url: https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73aa1c50e30f827b/698864e32dce0139239e5a6d/donald-trump-stephen-colbert.jpg?branch=production&width=366&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 366 og:image:height: 206 og:image:alt: Stephen Colbert during a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday Sept 10, 2015 on the CBS Television Network. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Again Calls for a Border Wall twitter:description: The billionaire returned to his proposal in an interview with Stephen Colbert. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73aa1c50e30f827b/698864e32dce0139239e5a6d/donald-trump-stephen-colbert.jpg?branch=production&width=366&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump on Stephen Colbert: Mexico Will Have to Build the Wall > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: Watch The Best Quotes By Donald Trump [Watch (HLS stream): Watch The Best Quotes By Donald Trump](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7MzTpVq2.m3u8) (1:21)  _Published 2015-07-23. Donald Trump's Most Ridiculous Quotes_  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 23, 2015 4:23 AM UTC  Stephen Colbert during a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday Sept 10, 2015 on the CBS Television Network. Stephen Colbert during a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday Sept 10, 2015 on the CBS Television Network.CBS Photo Archive—CBS via Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Sep 23, 2015 4:23 AM UTC Donald Trump is returning to the issue that helped propel him to the top of the Republican race for the presidential nomination, telling _The Late Show_ host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday that he would build a “great and beautiful wall” along the Mexican border. “We are going to build a wall. You’re going to pay for the wall,” the brash billionaire said he would tell the Mexican government. “The wall itself, we own.” Trump, who has been riding high in the polls since he entered the topsy-turvy chase for the GOP presidential nomination. He spent the summer hurling invectives at his rivals and offering a string of insensitive assessments of Americans. He also had ugly words for immigrants in the country illegally, and vowed to erect a thousand-mile wall to block new immigrants coming across the U.S.-Mexican border. Voters, in turn, rewarded him with increasingly strong support. **Read More:** [_The Donald Has Landed_](http://time.com/trump/) Until recently, that is. Last week’s debate at the Reagan presidential library seemed to be the first signs of vulnerability. Fellow business executive Carly Fiorina delivered a stand-out performance and directly confronted Trump about his impolitic remarks about her appearance. Trump was left blushing and spent much of the rest of the debate sulking. Trump, however, is retrenching. He was his typical self on Colbert’s program, boasting of his crowd sizes, poll numbers and personal wealth. Trump repeatedly says he is not accepting donations from supporters and instead prefers to pay for the campaign out of his deep pockets. After all, that’s the perk of being a billionaire. “I don’t want the money from the lobbyists and special interests,” Trump said. When asked by Colbert if the really thought President Obama was not born in the United States, Trump refused to answer. Trump has long peddled questions that Obama was born outside the United States and, thus, is ineligible to be President. (For the record: Obama was born to an American mother and Kenyan father in Hawaii.) Trump said he didn’t want to talk about Obama’s birthplace any more. Instead, he wanted to talk about veterans. “They’re treated worse than illegals,” Trump said of immigrants in the United States illegally. Trump’s entire campaign has been draped with a surreal quality. Colbert nodded to doubts that Trump was serious about being President, or if this is all part of Trump’s elaborate play for publicity. “Would that be a step down for you? You know what the pay is like,” Colbert asked. “It would be my great honor,” Trump replied. Colbert continued: “You seriously want the job?” As Trump sat down on Colbert’s stage, the comedian acknowledged that he, like so many television hosts, had enjoyed Trump’s campaign as a punchline. “You are setting the world on fire,” Colbert said. “I want to think you for running for President. I’m not going to say this stuff writes itself, but you certainly do deliver it on time every day,” Colbert said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/"},"headline":"Donald Trump on Stephen Colbert: Mexico Will Have to Build the Wall","datePublished":"2015-09-23T04:23:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:41:49.101Z","description":"New York real estate mogul Donald Trump appeared on \"The Late Show\" with Stephen Colbert Tuesday.","url":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election","stephen colbert"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73aa1c50e30f827b/698864e32dce0139239e5a6d/donald-trump-stephen-colbert.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Philip Elliott","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt73aa1c50e30f827b/698864e32dce0139239e5a6d/donald-trump-stephen-colbert.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Stephen Colbert during a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday Sept 10, 2015 on the CBS Television Network.","caption":"Stephen Colbert during a taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Thursday Sept 10, 2015 on the CBS Television Network.","creditText":"CBS Photo Archive—CBS via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/","name":"Donald Trump on Stephen Colbert: Mexico Will Have to Build the Wall"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch The Best Quotes By Donald Trump","description":"Donald Trump's Most Ridiculous Quotes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/7MzTpVq2/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-07-23T21:38:04.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7MzTpVq2.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/","duration":"PT1M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4045724/donald-trump-stephen-colbert/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```