Stephen Colbert Canned For Standing Up To CBS Over Trump

This was foreseeable. As a matter of fact, it’s surprising that this didn’t happen long before it did. Stephen Colbert has always been one to call the shots as he sees them on the events of the day. That’s how the Emmys have flown into his hands. One of the events of the day happens to involve his corporate overlords at CBS, namely their infamous $16 million payment to Donald Trump as settlement of his specious 60 Minutes suit, a suit they would have handily won had they stuck it out. But they didn’t want to stick it out, they wanted the Paramount/Skydance merger to go through and if the price tag on that was $16 million, hey, that’s the cost of doing business, right?

In all events, Colbert called the shot they way he always does and characterized the transaction as a “big fat bribe.” That brought the pink slip. This is how bad it’s getting.

Colbert learned of the decision Wednesday evening, a person familiar with the matter told the outlet. He told informed the audience at Thursday’s taping about the matter.

The news comes after Colbert blasted CBS’s deal with Trump to settle his lawsuit — widely regarded by legal experts as frivolous — over their editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.

“I believe this kind of complicated financial sentiment with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s ‘big fat bribe,’ because it all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance!” Colbert said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a vocal critic of Trump, reacted to the news on X, writing: “Just finished taping with Stephen Colbert who announced his show was cancelled. If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

It’s amazing what Trump has managed to do singlehandedly to media in this country, particularly news. And it is particularly amazing that CBS would seek to cut its own nose off to spite its face like that. Colbert’s show is an institution and canceling it is sheer foolishness on a business level. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to bet that this is one decision which the network decides to walk back.

CBS and Paramount would have done better to just let this one blow right past them and let Colbert say whatever he wanted. It would have been perceived as big minded of them. But evidently the people running the place don’t have big enough minds to grasp why that would have been a good idea. So be it. Stupid is as stupid does and this was a stupid thing to do.

God knows we will miss Colbert in the elections to come. But he might very well find another platform and show up CBS. In fact, I hope he does.

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Friends, if I can prevail upon you to be generous. We’re facing lower third quarter revenues than before and people are still depressed and shying away from political news — can you blame them? But somebody has to stay in the fight and on the front lines. If you can spare a few bucks it would greatly help. Nobody’s getting rich here, we’re just trying to keep on keeping on. Thank you. Ursula

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