--- title: Late Night Hosts Guess Secrets in Trump's School Transcripts description: Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel all have some guesses about what's hidden in Trump's school transcripts canonical: https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-07T16:13:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:57:57.667Z og:title: Late Night Hosts Guess Secrets in Trump's School Transcripts og:description: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel have theories og:url: https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6dff57586cce8bf9/6989465f09208f3d29413720/nedstewart.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: NedStewart og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Late Night Hosts Guess Secrets in Trump's School Transcripts twitter:description: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel have theories twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6dff57586cce8bf9/6989465f09208f3d29413720/nedstewart.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Late Night Comedians Think They Know Exactly What Trump's School Transcripts Really Reveal by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 7, 2019 4:13 PM UTC  by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Mar 7, 2019 4:13 PM UTC As part of [Michael Cohen’s](http://time.com/5546292/michael-cohen-more-trump-tower-moscow-documents-congress/) testimony to Congress he said that President Donald Trump, his former client, had asked him to perform various tasks, including making sure that his school transcripts remained hidden away. Among “the areas of interest in this Cohen testimony was his claim that one of the many weird things \[President\] Trump ordered him to do was to send letters warning Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores,” Jimmy Kimmel explained on Wednesday’s _Jimmy Kimmel Live_, joking: “I would bet Trump’s grades are so bad he couldn’t even get into Trump University.” To get to the bottom of the “truth” behind Trump’s schoolroom secrets, Kimmel welcomed the superintendent of the New York Military Academy (NYMA), Dr. Ned Stewart (played by Fred Willard), who had the truth about Trump’s grades and SAT score. Kimmel wasn’t the only late night television host to have thoughts on what [Trump](http://time.com/5546365/trump-impeachment-poll-monmouth/) wanted to stay secret on his high school report cards. “What could he possibly be hiding?” Stephen Colbert wanted to know on _The Late Show_. “We all assume he failed everything. Did they invent an easy class for him or something?” Colbert explained that _The Washington Post_ reported that the Trump had his New York Military Academy transcripts buried for an important reason: “That way, if a reporter tried to find out if Trump ever learned to read, write, or spell, there would be no smocking gun,” Colbert joked, [referencing one of the president’s Twitter typos](http://time.com/5475262/trump-smocking-gun/). According to Colbert’s research, Trump’s request to bury his high school records “came just days after Donald Trump challenged President Barack Obama to ‘show his records,‘ to prove that he hadn’t been a ‘terrible student.’” Colbert continued, “This happens over and over again: Everything [Trump](http://traffic.outbrain.com/network/redir?p=GM4IrSr3NrC3BFj2W7CWswaZzibXYuJKKrYkhLPpxsVQlRnQd00NRyV1-vazGBWoufUJF0BqfnqNJq7PKoasNTd-ApbBwEJeoLbfcqKrF11JooN6IunAY40RUcF2wLbztXrvrObgWEHkDRUQ73IehxusQGFhtPdNyTExv7rZBhPhCm3yTRjooOINbe%5FcTwuanBAhm9Pt2BZd5%5FVPeihuvRoxgkZLuhTWMStbAOeRwgeIiXPWVZLRw8Kq9lm9gUWtgMW4ZnZLx68KyYqWjGy2CaPRGSgKQCjPXc4vW2PmkxfuRI7x-KKMpG%5FdruWPeE8r8Z8WepwRyT2ABMcYxR0u2YwwLTQw4keuxGhUB6tC%5FUWtlR6PyJWZZpMxJYOCmNx5V9wtIHsaLOCrehSQDfKIrNSdHhTXzw0WCzaEER9Dne0XFNLmuOzmgNZ4ZZm5XFl2-nx4vOu7PwEFRIopUd5KYyjSxFtiL4NY6OpDlJwnAGNiR8F867DKKKT3CmiVPFP2LJ21v8A25SbLvUdGRtTo3YAOubHJcFX6JYn3V-oeAY%5F65PmJ9JWY3go7FikTJvRTPhYcSCswjD3fli%5F6MGHwrjC5LlFzQfncTvdNAuDLHagLjFCnkthWIVwUi%5FUMOX-7bRB7bWtEp8KB150u8cVv80SVX5b8jK%5Fj39Be8gt75IrgHxsWu47It8JYriWB-cd3ONnJFm58nUmA1vQMocuMqtpTk9ArZ9M85ZKwaVZQDly2BzHqXwG4zNbgLJNej1awrlAFNsM8ZXfFAkgv9JhqWA82nx1nlYRKOIlCE2xZlfTcevH1YmUuShOSWT-zZIKqZ3npoUng8Snka5Z2YOz7JrJnSLzpnOe1sAQEwM-boPP8Zi3nuWE%5FrJADNHik354qaeMylRw-ZNSUfOWhG6O-LQ&c=dbea9af6&v=3) accuses other people of, he’s guilty of himself — oh my God! Trump was born in Kenya!” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/"},"headline":"Late Night Comedians Think They Know Exactly What Trump's School Transcripts Really Reveal","datePublished":"2019-03-07T16:13:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:57:57.667Z","description":"Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers all have guesses","url":"https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Donald Trump","Late Night Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6dff57586cce8bf9/6989465f09208f3d29413720/nedstewart.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6dff57586cce8bf9/6989465f09208f3d29413720/nedstewart.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"NedStewart","caption":"Kimmel and Colbert make fun of Trump's school records.","creditText":"","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":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5546974/colbert-kimmel-om-trump-school-records/","name":"Late Night Comedians Think They Know Exactly What Trump's School Transcripts Really Reveal"}}]}] ```