After Colbert asked Streep about empathizing with the characters she plays, he asked her, “What’s it like for you to see somebody who is the President of the United States who is the top politician who is indifferent to the idea of empathy? I’m not sure he knows what you mean when you say it.”

And Streep delivered a sobering assessment of Trump.

“I’m scared. I’m scared by him, by his possibility,” she said. “And I do empathize with him. I can’t imagine what his 3 a.m. is like. There’s a gathering storm—everyone feels it, he feels it. His children are in jeopardy, and I feel that. I think, ‘What if my children were in jeopardy?’ I would do anything — anything — to get them out of trouble. So we should be afraid. That’s what I think.”