And now for a moment of clarity.

If Donald Trump could replace every late night show host with Mr. Waters, Jesse Waters, he would.

Because then he'd have across all the networks and cable a unified voice that would not be discordant towards him, would not challenge what he's doing.

So that's at the core, to your point about sort of the authoritarian playbook.

But to the last point about the culture, I think is fundamentally important because I think you

started this off correctly. A lot of people think

late night television is when you kick your shoes off, you're lying there in bed and you're

sort of, this is going to help me fall asleep. But we all know it's much, much more than that.

It is a reflection in many respects of us and what's going on in parts of the country that we oftentimes don't think

about or hear much from, these hosts like Colbert and others try to distill that for us. And some

of it we laugh at. Others we sort of listen to and go, hmm, and others still we get angry at.

And so I think in this moment, what Colbert and all of the other hosts are, I think you're going to see this.

Because remember, he's not gone until next year.

So we're going to see this sort of ramping up of this energy.

And how it all plays out across the culture,

I think sets up whether or not Donald Trump is Louis the 16th or not.

Ahead, quote, President Trump does not accept dissent and is using fear to try to suppress it.

Those are the words of former secretary of the Air Force,

Frank. Catch Michael Steele on The Weeknight, Monday through Friday at 7 Eastern on MSNBC.