A. [Holds up binders containing scripts] This is “Scripts: Good!” This is “Scripts: Workin’ On.” And this is yesterday’s supplement of 13 more. There are presently 75 of these [scripts]. Most are very evergreen. They’re news-related to a certain extent, in that they were inspired by the world. We’re curating what we’re noticing about the world. But I don’t know how many of them will survive.

Q. Given how you presented yourself on “The Colbert Report,” do you think the political world might be concerned that “The Late Show” won’t be welcoming to conservative guests?

A. I don’t know what the political world’s concerned about. It’s certainly not governing. [laughs] One thing about the last show is that, as much as I like dumb jokes and the comedy of dumbness, my show was almost always an argument with someone who wasn’t there. I had to be karate-yes or karate-no. I couldn’t be karate-maybe on anything. And, for the entirety of the Obama years, the adversarial press and punditry in general yanked the emotional needle in one direction and nailed it there. The story is either “transformative president” or “subversive president,” but that nails you in the same direction, emotionally. It’s always either attack or defense, but on one issue. Everything was always channeled through the president. That’s why a great joke — and it worked every time — was “Thanks, Obama.”

Q. Do you think your aptitude for political comedy, particularly as we head into a presidential election, will give you an advantage over your late-night competitors?

A. I don’t know what anybody else is going to do. Conan, Jimmy and Jimmy — sincerely, we’re friends. So it’s better for me not to think about that. I can only do what I do. Now, this is the fifth presidential election I’m covering in late night. It happens to excite me on a level that it may not excite other people. I know what it’s like to work on covering a campaign as a fake correspondent, which is close to a real correspondent, in that you have to have a lot of general knowledge of any individual campaign, and to be ready to make jokes. Or conclusions, whatever a real reporter does. [On a late-night show,] all we ever want to know is, where do we point our magnifying glass? Well, for the next 430 days, we know exactly where it’s going to point, most of the time. And the nice thing is that the story doesn’t really get old. People care, every day. It’s the biggest story in the world and nobody dies. What could be better than that?