Donald Trump has weighed in on CBS axing The Late Show with Stephen Colbert while taking aim at several other late-night hosts.
It was announced yesterday that CBS will bring The Late Show to an end in May. The network described the cancellation of the 32-year-old late-night talk show as a “financial decision”.
However, multiple CBS staffers have told The Independent they believe it to be a continuation of the “Trump shakedown” that began with parent company Paramount’s settlement of the 60 Minutes lawsuit.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”
He continued: “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
NBC’s Tonight Show has for more than a decade been hosted by former Saturday Night Live comedian Jimmy Fallon. Kimmel hosts Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, while Gutfeld! airs on Fox News.
While CBS bosses said in a statement that the end of The Late Show after 32 years was purely due to late-night television becoming unprofitable because of dwindling ad revenues and high production costs, the decision comes at the same time as Paramount’s pending $8.4bn merger with Skydance, the media and film production giant, which requires approval from the Trump administration.
In May, Colbert used the show to heavily criticize the network over concerns that they could be breaking anti-bribery laws by settling a meritless lawsuit with Trump in order to get his administration’s approval for the merger.
“While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16m settlement over his 60 Minutes lawsuit,” Colbert said after returning from a multi-week break.
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“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16m would help,” he quipped, adding that the “technical name in legal circles” for the settlement is “a big, fat bribe”.
A week earlier, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart had also attacked the deal. Stewart works for Comedy Central, which is also owned by Paramount. Colbert made his name on The Daily Show before landing the Late Show gig, and the two comics have been the most visible internal critics of the $16m settlement that was announced on July 1.
In a recent Daily Show episode, Stewart joked: “So the implication is you don’t get your $8bn merger… unless you give me a tremendous amount of money…. I’m obviously not a lawyer, but I did watch Goodfellas – that sounds illegal.”
The Late Show was previously hosted by David Letterman from 1993 to 2015. Colbert has hosted since September 2015. The show is recorded at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan’s Theater District in the heart of New York City.
