Although many have speculated that CBS’s decision to end The Late Show next May is a political move, Donald Trump claimed that it was actually a “lack of talent” that brought Stephen Colbert‘s late-night show to an end.
“Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, Late Night,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social on Tuesday night. “That is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT, and the fact that this deficiency was costing CBS $50 Million Dollars a year in losses — And it was only going to get WORSE!”
He added that other late-night shows, including NBC’s The Tonight Show and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, will follow suit. “Next up will be an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel, and then, a weak, and very insecure, Jimmy Fallon,” Trump wrote. “The only real question is, who will go first? Show Biz and Television is a very simple business. If you get Ratings, you can say or do anything. If you don’t, you always become a victim. Colbert became a victim to himself, the other two will follow.”
Kimmel, who is currently on vacation and has enlisted guest hosts on his show for the past few weeks, responded on Instagram almost immediately. “I know you’re busy Sharpie-ing the Epstein files, but this seems like a weird way to tell people to watch Matt Damon and Ken Jennings on an all-new Who Wants to Be a Millionaire tomorrow night at 8|7c on @ABC,” Kimmel wrote.
Earlier this month, CBS announced it will end The Late Show, hosted by Colbert over the last decade, in May 2026, amid financial issues at the network. “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” the network said in a statement. “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert has consistently called out Trump on the show. Three days prior to the cancellation the host aired a segment calling out CBS’s parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump, a deal that Colbert dubbed “a big, fat bribe.” The following day, Skydance CEO David Ellison met with the FCC to discuss the company’s proposed merger with Paramount. Following the cancellation, the FCC approved the merger.
Politicians and Hollywood figures have noted that CBS appears to have cancelled The Late Show in a bow to Trump. “Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancelation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration as the company looks for merger approval,” the Writers Guild of America said in a statement. “Cancellations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society.”
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Colbert started hosting The Late Show, taking the baton from David Letterman, in 2015, after hosting the news satire show The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. As of July, Colbert has hosted the show for 10 seasons on CBS, filming at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City.
From Rolling Stone US
