President Trump didn’t hold back his glee over the cancellation of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” a program that’s been a thorn in his side for years. The announcement from CBS on Thursday has sparked a firestorm of debate about whether this move was purely financial or something more politically charged.
According to NewsNation, Trump took to Truth Social to revel in the news, declaring, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” He didn’t stop there, taking sharp jabs at other late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon while lifting up Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld as the superior talent.
The timing of this decision raises serious questions, coming just days after Colbert publicly criticized CBS parent company Paramount Global for settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump. With Paramount also seeking approval from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission for a merger with Skydance, the optics couldn’t be worse for those claiming this is just about the bottom line.
CBS insists the cancellation is “purely a financial decision,” unrelated to the show’s content or Paramount’s dealings. Yet, with “The Late Show” pulling in nearly 2.5 million viewers nightly in the second quarter of this year, it’s hard to swallow that money alone drove this call.
Compare that to Gutfeld’s show on Fox News, which averages 3.3 million viewers but airs an hour earlier and isn’t even a direct competitor. If ratings aren’t the issue, one has to wonder if backstage politics and corporate maneuvering played a bigger role than CBS admits.
Colbert himself didn’t shy away from the controversy, mocking Paramount’s settlement with Trump as a “big fat bribe” during his Monday monologue. That kind of sharp-edged commentary might have been the final straw for a network already navigating delicate waters with the administration.
Democratic senators like Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, frequent guests on Colbert’s show, have demanded transparency about the cancellation. Warren stated on X, “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,” a sentiment echoed by Schiff’s call for clarity.
Their concerns aren’t baseless, given Trump’s long-standing feud with Colbert and his public call for the comedian’s firing on Truth Social last year. When a sitting president openly targets a media figure, and then that figure’s show vanishes, the dots aren’t hard to connect.
Colbert, for his part, revealed on Thursday’s episode that he learned of the cancellation just a day prior. He poignantly noted, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” signaling a complete erasure rather than a replacement.
The comedian has been a relentless critic of Trump since taking over the show in 2015 from David Letterman. His platform often hosted Democratic figures opposing the president, amplifying voices that clashed with the administration’s agenda.
Trump’s friendly ties with Gutfeld, whose show he praised as “better than all of them combined,” only deepen the perception of a cultural divide in late-night television. This isn’t just about ratings; it’s about who gets to shape the narrative after hours.
With Colbert’s exit, a space that once challenged the current power structure is now silent, at least on CBS. The question remains whether this is truly about dollars and cents or a quiet victory for those who prefer their critics off the airwaves.
As this saga unfolds, the cancellation of “The Late Show” could signal a chilling effect on late-night hosts who dare to bite the hand that regulates their industry. Paramount’s pending merger and the Trump settlement loom large over any claim of impartiality in this decision.
Trump’s Truth Social posts, while brash, reflect a broader frustration with a media landscape often seen as tilted against conservative values. If CBS thought this move would go unnoticed, they underestimated the public’s appetite for sniffing out hidden agendas.
For now, Colbert’s departure marks the end of an era for CBS late-night programming, leaving viewers to wonder what fills the void. Whether it’s a new voice or just static, the shadow of political influence will linger over this decision for a long time.
